Hezbollah “will not allow anyone to disarm him,” the leader of the Lebanese group Naim qassem on Friday, 18. April, while the United States is putting pressure on Beirut to make a movement supported by Iran to submit his weapons.
Comment comes just a few hours after the other official Hezbollah said the group rejects disarmament talks until Israel completely withdraws from the southern Lebanon and does not stop “aggression”.
Hezbollah, who has long had a strong influence in Lebanese politics, was weakened after more than a year of conflicts with Israel, caused by the war in Gaza – including Israeli land offensive and two-monthly intensive bombing that was difficult to affect the Group’s leadership. The conflicts were mostly completed by a truce in November, but only after the long-term leader of the Group and Qassem’s predecessor, Hassan Nascrallah, was killed in the Israeli air attack.
“We will not allow anyone to disarm Hezbollah nor to disarm the resistance to Israel,” said Qassem in addressing on television connected to Hezbollah. “We need to delete the idea of disarming from the dictionary.”
President Lebanon Joseph Aoun said this week that he wants to “2025. The age in which the weapon will be under the control of the state”, and hoping that the goal will achieve through “dialogue” with Hezbollah. Qassem said that his group was ready for a dialogue on the “defense strategy”, “but not under pressure from the occupation” by Israel. “Israel must withdraw (from Southern Lebanon) and to stop aggression, and the Lebanese state must begin the reconstruction process,” he added.
His statements came shortly after the other official Hezbollah, Wafic Safa, said the group would not discuss weapons until Israel completely withdraw from southern Lebanon. “It is not a question of disarmament,” Safa said in an interview for the Al-Nur Radio Station connected to Hezbollah.
“Wouldn’t it be logical to retire first, then release the prisoner, and then stops the defense strategy? The defense strategy involves thinking about how to protect the party to submit a weapon,” Safa said.
Analysts state how the idea of disarming Hezbollah, sometimes unthinkable, today may not be so far, and even inevitable.
According to the Agreement from November, Israel should have pulled all his forces from the southern Lebanon. However, Israeli soldiers are still present in five positions in the southern Lebanon, which they consider “strategic”.
Israel also continues with almost daily attacks on Lebanon’s territory – including on Friday – claiming to shoot members of Hezbollah. According to the truce, Hezbollah was supposed to withdraw his fighters north of the river litani and remove all the remaining military infrastructure in the south. The Lebanese army is gradually distributed in the south, as Israeli forces are drawn.
Hezbollah claims that the truce does not apply to the rest of Lebanon, although it is based on the resolution of the UN Security Council, which invokes the disarmament of all non-state groups. Hezbollah is the only group that retained weapons after the end of the 15-year-old Civil War in Lebanon in 1990. year, justifying the need for “resistance” against Israel, which occupied the southern part of the country until 2000.
Special American Envoy for the Middle East Morgan Ortagus, which was visited by Beirut this month, was still putting pressure on Lebanon to “fully fulfill the conditions of the hostilities, including the disarmament of Hezbollah and all militias.”
Safa said on Friday that Hezbollah and the Lebanese army respect the conditions of the truce. “The problem is in Israel, who doesn’t do that,” he concluded.
(Vijesti.ba)
