Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said that the implementation of last year’s ceasefire agreement with Israel must apply to both sides, arguing that political debate has focused unfairly on Hezbollah’s commitments while ignoring clear Israeli violations of the deal.
Speaking during a newsmaker interview with Gregg Carlstrom, Middle East correspondent for the Economist at the Doha Forum 2025 on Sunday, Salam said Lebanon is already living through a “war of attrition… conducted by one side, by Israel,” despite the ceasefire agreement that Beirut and Tel Aviv endorsed in 2024.
“We should have been in a situation of cessation of hostilities… which unfortunately has not been abided by Israel first,” Salam said. “There has been no cessation of hostilities on Israel’s part.”
The prime minister said enforcement of the deal must be reciprocal and rooted in the commitments each party accepted last year.
“Everyone should be held accountable for what they agreed to,” he said.
He noted that Hezbollah formally accepted the terms of the deal, which he said “lists the six and only six actors who can carry arms in Lebanon… Hezbollah is not among them.”
But Salam noted that Israel has not fulfilled its obligations, including withdrawing from several Lebanese border points it seized last year.
“Israel was supposed to have withdrawn from all of Lebanese territory… it occupied 10 months ago. Unfortunately, it didn’t do that,” he said.
The premier dismissed Israeli claims that the positions hold strategic value.
“No one was able to convince me that these points have any relevance in the age of satellite imagery, drones… and balloons monitoring the border,” he said. “We are not in 1914, 1915, 1916, or World War I, where you need to be on top of a hill to monitor what’s around you.”
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