Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem rejected an agreement on Friday between Israel and Lebanon, saying the Iran-backed group would not “surrender” nearly six months after the conflict with Israel began.
“We oppose the framework agreement and call for it to be rejected,” Qassem said in a televised address broadcast by the group’s Al-Manar television channel, reports AFP.
Israel and Lebanon began US-sponsored direct talks after Hezbollah entered the Middle East war on 2 March by attacking Israel. Israel responded with heavy strikes and a ground invasion that Lebanese authorities say has killed more than 4,300 people.
The two sides signed a framework agreement in late June that calls for Hezbollah to be disarmed, Israeli forces to gradually withdraw from southern Lebanon and the Lebanese army to deploy in the area, beginning with “pilot zones”.
Qassem denounced the agreement, saying, “The framework agreement is illegitimate, unlawful, humiliating, destructive to Lebanese sovereignty.”
He also rejected the proposed pilot zones and any verification mechanism.
“We do not agree to the ‘pilot zones’ or to what comes from them,” he said.
Following talks in Rome earlier this month, a Lebanese source told AFP that an agreement had been reached on a “shortlist” of countries that could supervise implementation of the pilot-zone process. This would involve the Lebanese army dismantling Hezbollah infrastructure in the designated areas.
A new round of talks had been scheduled for early September, although no date has yet been announced.
Violence has declined since a US-Iran memorandum of understanding on the wider conflict in June and the Israel-Lebanon framework agreement later that month.
However, Lebanon continues to report regular Israeli airstrikes, artillery fire and widespread demolition of civilian buildings in villages and towns in the south.
Israeli forces remain inside a self-declared “security zone” extending about 10 kilometres (six miles) into Lebanese territory along the border.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported several Israeli airstrikes in the south on Friday, including in the Nabatieh area, where attacks have increased in recent days.
Qassem said Hezbollah backed the implementation of a November 2024 ceasefire that was intended to end an earlier war with Israel.
“We will keep our heads high and we will not surrender,” he vowed.
