BEIRUT: Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem on Friday said his group supported the Lebanese state’s pursuit of diplomacy to end Israeli attacks, while also criticizing the inclusion of a civilian representative in recent talks with Israel.
The state has chosen “diplomacy to end the aggression and implement” a November 2024 ceasefire deal “and we support it continuing in this direction,” Qassem said in a televised address.
Lebanese and Israeli civilian representatives held their first direct talks in decades on Wednesday under the auspices of the year-old ceasefire monitoring mechanism, a move Lebanon’s president said was to avoid prospects of another war in Lebanon.
Qassem criticized the move and urged authorities to reconsider.
“We consider this measure an additional misstep on top of the sin” of the government’s decision in August to task the army with disarming Hezbollah, he said.
“Have you made a gratuitous concession? This concession will not change the enemy’s position, nor its aggression or occupation,” Qassem said, accusing Israel and the United States of wanting Lebanese authorities to be negotiating “under fire.”
“They want to eliminate our existence,” Qassem said, but “we will defend ourselves, our people, our country. We are prepared to sacrifice everything, and we will not surrender.”
He accused Israel of violating the year-old ceasefire that sought to end more than a year of hostilities between Israel and his Iran-backed group, which emerged heavily weakened with its arsenal pummelled and senior commanders killed including former chief Hassan Nasrallah.
Qassem said his group was cooperating with the Lebanese authorities, and that America and Israel should have “no say in how we manage our domestic affairs,” calling their imposition of conditions on Lebanon as “unacceptable.”
Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam has said the new talks were strictly limited to fully implementing last year’s truce and did not amount to broader peace discussions.