Israel\u2019s ceasefire with Lebanon is \u201cessential, urgently needed and a demand shared by all,\u201d a senior Hezbollah official told NBC News, but Hezbollah won\u2019t comply with Israel\u2019s demand that it disarm \u201cexcept within a framework tied to a broader national security vision.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bilal Lakkiss, a senior member of Hezbollah\u2019s central committee, spoke to NBC News by phone Thursday night hours after Trump announced the ceasefire deal but before it came into effect.<\/p>\n
The nascent agreement over the Lebanese-Israel border has raised hopes for a more lasting ceasefire between Israel, the U.S. and Iran as well as negotiations to normalize diplomatic relations between Israel and Lebanon, potentially ending generations of regional wars.<\/p>\n
But while Lakkiss said he welcomed such further talks, he credited Hezbollah\u2019s military strength for the Thursday night ceasefire, which he said vindicated Hezbollah\u2019s weapons as essential to defending Lebanese sovereignty.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe status of weapons in Lebanon has, in fact, gained greater legitimacy, as the ceasefire would not have been achieved without the resilience of the resistance,\u201d said Lakkiss. \u201cIn that sense, the strength of the resistance has been a decisive factor in pushing Israel toward a ceasefire.\u201d<\/p>\n
The senior Hezbollah official also dismissed the separate, but related, negotiations in Washington between Israel and Lebanon. The Lebanese and Israeli ambassadors to the U.S. met for talks in Washington on Tuesday that were also attended by Secretary of State Marco Rubio.<\/p>\n
That meeting was the first formal, higher-level contact between Lebanon and Israel since the early 1990s.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But Lakkiss dismissed the meeting as little more than a publicity stunt.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat is happening \u2026 in Washington appears largely symbolic,\u201d he said. \u201cThe United States seeking to sponsor negotiations between Lebanon and Israel \u2014 is not particularly useful and does not advance matters forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lakkiss said the Lebanese state, whose security forces are far weaker than Hezbollah, lacks the ability to confront Israel.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat has the Lebanese state done? It has been unable to do anything,\u201d said Lakkiss. \u201cAs long as Israel continues its attacks and the Lebanese state is unable to prevent them, the people will naturally defend themselves. This is the reality of the resistance in Lebanon.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lakkiss also warned that Hezbollah, which he referred to as \u201cthe resistance,\u201d will return to fighting should the ceasefire collapse \u2014 another reason the group will seek to safeguard its weapons, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the ceasefire is not sustained, this would mean that the resistance in Lebanon will respond, which in turn would lead to a renewed breakdown of the ceasefire,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Lakkiss also said that Israel must withdraw from Lebanon.<\/p>\n
\u201cLebanon\u2019s full sovereign rights must be upheld\u2026Israel\u2019s withdrawal from Lebanese territory and the return of the Lebanese people to their land,\u201d he said, rejecting any proposed buffer zone as \u201ca violation and occupation of Lebanon\u2019s sovereignty.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Israel\u2019s ceasefire with Lebanon is \u201cessential, urgently needed and a demand shared by all,\u201d a senior Hezbollah official…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":395972,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-395971","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israel","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=395971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395971\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/395972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=395971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=395971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=395971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}