Qassem says Hezbollah demands 'comprehensive' ceasefire, complete Israeli withdrawal
Hezbollah on Thursday rejected the latest ceasefire agreement reached between Israel and the Lebanese government, demanding a complete Israeli withdrawal.
Hezbollah leader Sheikh Naim Qassem, in a written statement read on TV, said the agreement's demand that Hezbollah fighters leave southern Lebanon under fire would mean "surrender, defeat and achieving the enemy's goals."
"What we are concerned about is an end to the aggression, ceasefire and Israel's withdrawal," he said. "We did not make any commitment to any party to stop resisting as long as there is occupation," he added.
"As long as the aggression continues, we will confront it with all the strength we possess, and we will strike wherever we decide and are able."
Qassem called direct negotiations "futile and humiliating" and said disarming Hezbollah is a "decapitation of Lebanon's strength."
"The ceasefire must be comprehensive... without the Israeli enemy having the freedom to kill," Qassem said, urging the government to halt "the farce and humiliation called direct talks" with Israel.
He added that Israeli settlements will not be safe, "as long as our villages are unsafe, bombed, demolished, and our people killed."
The ongoing fighting in Lebanon, where Israeli forces have seized large swaths of the south, threatens efforts to end the Iran war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a key transit point for oil and gas whose closure has jolted the world economy.
Iran has demanded that any lasting truce extend to Lebanon. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who faces elections later this year, wants to press ahead with Israel's offensive until Hezbollah no longer poses a threat. Israeli troops have seized around a fifth of Lebanon since the war started in March.
U.S. President Donald Trump, who faced a rare rebuke from Congress on Wednesday, has sought to downplay the diplomatic deadlock and the failure of declared ceasefires to end the fighting, telling reporters that in the Middle East, "a ceasefire is when you're shooting in a more moderate manner."
The latest declared ceasefire came about through U.S. brokered talks held between Israel and Lebanon's government, which accuses Hezbollah of dragging the country into war and had made efforts to disarm it before the latest hostilities.
President Joseph Aoun on Thursday called the new agreement "the last chance to enter a final and comprehensive ceasefire." He said Lebanon was ready to implement Wednesday's deal once he receives responses from relevant factions in Lebanon, including Hezbollah. The United States — and Trump himself — would determine how and when the deal is implemented, he told journalists on Thursday.
The agreement states that Hezbollah "is not just an enemy of Israel and an enemy of America, but that it is an enemy of Lebanon" and calls for dismantling it. The government has promised to do so in the past but does not have the capabilities to disarm Hezbollah by force.
The latest agreement did not say when Israel would withdraw from southern Lebanon but said the U.S. would support the Lebanese army as it works to assert control in areas where Hezbollah has long wielded power.
"The killers of prophets will not find stability on our land. We will fight the invaders until we expel them from our land and stop their aggression, relying on God's help and support, the bravery of our courageous resistance fighters, and the unwavering support of our great and exceptional people," Qassem said.
A top Iranian general on Thursday reiterated Tehran's demand for a full ceasefire in Lebanon and called for Israel to pull troops back to where they were when the wider war began. At that time, Israel held five strategic points along the border.
"Supporting the resistance in Lebanon is the duty of all of us, and eliminating Israel from the region is an achievable goal for Muslims," Esmail Qaani, the head of the Revolutionary Guard's elite Quds Force, was quoted as saying by the semiofficial Fars and Tasnim news agencies.
As diplomatic efforts have repeatedly faltered, Iran and the U.S. have traded fire in and around the Strait of Hormuz, which remains effectively closed. Before the war, around a fifth of the world's oil and gas, as well as large shipments of fertilizer and other goods, passed through the narrow waterway.
Source: Naharnet, Associated Press
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