Hezbollah “will not let anyone disarm it,” the leader of the Lebanese group, Naim Qassem, said on Friday, while Washington pressed Beirut to force the movement to hand over his arms.
Hezbollah, for a long time a dominant force in Lebanese politics, has been weakened by more than a year of hostilities with Israel triggered by the Gaza War, including an Israeli terrestrial foray and two months of heavy bombardments which decimated the group’s management.
The fighting was largely put to an end with a ceasefire in November, but not before the long-standing leader of the group and the predecessor of Qassem Hassan Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli air strike.
“We will not let anyone disarm Hezbollah or disarm the resistance” against Israel, “said Qassem in remarks on a television channel affiliated with Hezbollah. “We must reduce this idea of the disarmament of the dictionary.”
His comments occurred a few hours after another Hezbollah official said that the group had refused to discuss the delivery of its weapons unless Israel is completely withdrawn from southern Lebanon and does not stop its “attack”.
“It is not a question of disarmament,” said Wafic Safa in an interview at the Hezbollah radio station. “What the president (Joseph Aoun) said in his inauguration speech is a defensive strategy.”
SAFA, according to experts, experts belong to the most radical faction of the movement, said Hezbollah had transmitted its position to Aoun, which said on Tuesday that it had sought “to do in 2025 the year of restriction of weapons in the state”.
In his interview, Safa asked: “Would it not be logical for Israel to withdraw first, then release the prisoners, then stop his assault … Then we discuss a defensive strategy?
“The defensive strategy is to think about how to protect Lebanon, not to prepare for the party to put its arms back.”
Analysts said that the former idea unthinkable of the disarmament of Hezbollah could no longer be so and can even be inevitable.
‘The problem is Israel’ ‘
Under the ceasefire in November, Israel was supposed to withdraw all its forces from southern Lebanon. But despite the agreement, his troops remained in five positions in southern Lebanon which they deem “strategic”.
Israel has also continued to make quasi -day strikes against Lebanon – including Friday – claiming that it targets the members of Hezbollah.
Under the break, Hezbollah had to withdraw its fighters north of the Litani river in Lebanon and dismantle any military infrastructure remaining in the south.
The Army of Lebanon is deployed in the South while the remote Israeli forces.
Hezbollah says that the ceasefire does not apply to the rest of Lebanon, although it is based on resolution 1701 of the United Nations Security Council, which calls for disarmament of non-state groups.
Hezbollah was the only group to keep its arms after the end of the Lebanon civil war over 15 years in 1990, saying that they were for “resistance” against Israel, which continued to occupy the south until 2000.
Special American envoy for the Middle East Morgan Ortagus, who visited Beirut this month, said that Washington continued to press Beirut “to fully achieve the cessation of hostilities, and this includes the disarmament of Hezbollah and all militias”.
Safa said on Friday that Hezbollah and the Lebanese army respect the terms of the truce. “The problem is Israel, which has not done so,” he said.
On Saturday, a source close to Hezbollah said AFP that the group had given in to the Lebanese army, around 190 of its 265 military positions identified in the south of the Litani.
