Hezbollah claimed on Tuesday afternoon that Iran has provided it with guarantees that it will not sign a final nuclear agreement with the United States unless Israel withdraws from southern Lebanon. The comments were made by the terrorist organization’s media office to Reuters. Hezbollah did not issue an official statement on the matter.
According to the Hezbollah statement, a withdrawal would be the result of continued negotiations between Tehran and Washington, rather than a precondition for them. Those talks are set to begin after the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the two countries, expected on Friday.
“There will be no nuclear deal between Iran and the United States unless the Israelis withdraw” from Lebanon, the terrorist organization said, effectively acknowledging that the memorandum does not include a withdrawal clause, but that it would be one of Iran’s demands in the negotiations.
In this context, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said earlier Tuesday that “it cannot be said that the war has fully ended unless Israeli forces withdraw from the areas they occupied during the last war.” He added that “the most important achievement of the first phase is the announcement of an immediate and permanent end to the war on all fronts, which took effect on Monday morning, although formal implementation will begin on Friday. Iran saw the end of the war in Lebanon as an obligation. Just as the ceasefire included Lebanon, the declaration of the end of the war also includes the Lebanese front.”
Meanwhile, the Lebanese Hezbollah-affiliated channel Al-Manar reported a drone strike in al-Nabatieh al-Fawqa in southern Lebanon.
At the same time, Hezbollah published a statement purportedly from its secretary-general Naim Qassem to Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, thanking him for his “strong and supportive stance toward Lebanon, its people and its resistance, which is forcing Israel to immediately and permanently stop military operations on all fronts, including Lebanon.”
According to the statement, Iran has "turned the only glimmer of hope for stopping the Israeli-American aggression against Lebanon into reality. We have always said that Iran gave Hezbollah, the resistance and the Lebanese people everything and received nothing in return. Iran is a symbol of pride and dignity. In the name of Hezbollah and the Islamic resistance, in the name of the Lebanese people wishing to express their gratitude, in the name of the dead and the wounded, I thank you and ask you to convey our thanks and appreciation to Leader Mojtaba Khamenei.”
U.S. President Donald Trump also addressed the Lebanon ceasefire issue on Tuesday, saying on the sidelines of the G7 summit in France that he had suggested Syria, and its leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, should handle Hezbollah.
“He has done a tremendous job unifying the country, and he is very firm against Hezbollah. He does not like them,” the president said.
He added that ““Israel’s fighting Hezbollah too long and too many people are being killed. You don’t have to knock down an apartment house every time you’re looking for somebody, because there are a lot of people in those apartment houses, and they’re not all Hezbollah, that I can tell you. And I suggest that to Israel: to let Syria take care of Hezbollah is, to be honest with you, I think they do a better job of doing it.”
Trump also criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the strike in Dahieh hours before the completion of the agreement: “He needs to act much more responsibly when it comes to Lebanon. I am not happy with the way Israel has acted toward Lebanon and toward Hezbollah.”
Trump and the Emir of Qatar on the sidelines of the G7
(Video: The White House)
“I did not like the fact that two hours before we were about to sign the agreement there was a strike in Lebanon. I made that clear to them. It was not proportional. It was a brutal strike. If Israel cannot carry out the mission without killing everyone else along the way, then the Syrian leader will do the job,” he said.
On Monday afternoon, a senior Hezbollah official said the organization had not carried out any offensive action against Israel since the ceasefire agreement between Iran and the United States was announced. In remarks to Reuters, he added: “Hezbollah’s position regarding the ceasefire is linked to Israel’s commitment to it.” He effectively suggested that the IDF has also been observing the ceasefire.
“Hezbollah rejects Israel’s ‘freedom of action’ in Lebanon,” the official said, adding that “Iran delayed signing the agreement in order to monitor Israel’s compliance with the ceasefire in Lebanon.” In a conversation two days earlier between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald Trump, Israeli officials said the prime minister made clear that Israel does not see itself bound by the Lebanese clause in the agreement. Netanyahu said the IDF would remain in its current positions and would not withdraw from Lebanon.
At a press conference held Monday, Netanyahu said: “You remember what we were told: If we go to battle with Hezbollah, we will have tens of thousands of casualties, the towers will come down in Tel Aviv, in Haifa, in Jerusalem, in Be'er- Sheva; Israeli cities will be reduced to ruins. You remember that. I did not accept that, we fought them, and we fought them hard; we also captured their key positions like the Beaufort, which Hezbollah had used for years to threaten the northern communities, and in fact the entire country."