Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem issued a sharp message to the Lebanese government on Saturday, attacking its framework agreement with Israel and warning that it gives “the Zionist entity legitimacy to annex the lands it occupied.”
Qassem said the framework’s linkage between the disarmament of Hezbollah and an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon was “a very dangerous proposal that crosses all red lines.”
Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem
(Photo: Al Manar TV/Reuters)
“We told the authorities that direct negotiations are nothing but unnecessary concessions to Israel,” he said, arguing that such meetings were intended to “impose submission to the demands of aggression and to the dictates of Israel and the United States.”
Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed terror group that has long operated as both a political and military force in Lebanon, has faced renewed pressure over its weapons as part of diplomatic efforts to stabilize the Israel-Lebanon border. Israel has demanded that Hezbollah be disarmed, while the group insists that its arsenal is a Lebanese internal matter and a necessary part of what it calls resistance to Israel.
Qassem said Hezbollah’s weapons were an internal Lebanese issue in which “the Israeli enemy has no right to interfere.”
“No one has the right to deny the Lebanese their right to defend themselves and their land from an occupier,” he said. “The enemy must withdraw.”
He described the agreement as “humiliating,” a “concession of sovereignty” and “void.”
Qassem instead urged the Lebanese government to implement what he called the Iranian-American memorandum of understanding, which he said sent the sides to 60 days of negotiations under a ceasefire on all fronts. According to him, the memorandum also includes the establishment of a mechanism involving Qatar and Tehran to prevent escalation in Lebanon.
“We will take all necessary measures and apply international and Arab pressure to ensure that the Israeli enemy adheres to the first clause of the memorandum of understanding and withdraws from Lebanon,” Qassem said. “We say to the Lebanese authorities: The time has come for you to retreat from the sins that are destroying Lebanon.”
Qassem said Hezbollah was prepared to cooperate with the Lebanese state on issues of sovereignty, the return of Lebanese prisoners, the return of displaced residents, reconstruction and the formation of a national security strategy.
“We are ready to cooperate and stand together for Lebanon’s sovereignty, the liberation of its land, the expulsion of the Israeli occupier, the return of the prisoners, the return of the displaced, the reconstruction of the country and an agreement on a national security strategy,” he said.
But he made clear that Hezbollah does not intend to leave the battlefield.
“We will continue as a resistance on the ground in order to defeat the occupation,” Qassem said. “We did not leave the ground under the most difficult circumstances, and we will not leave it.”