Hezbollah leader calls ceasefire “capitulation” and calls for withdrawal of Israeli Army from Lebanon

The general secretary of the Shiite party-militia Hezbollah, Naim Qasem, expressed this Thursday his rejection of the ceasefire reached between Lebanon and Israel, calling the agreement “capitulation” and urging a “total cessation” of hostilities, as well as the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Lebanese territory.

Qasem has stated in a speech that the cessation of hostilities agreed between the parties represents an abandonment of Lebanon’s acts of resistance in the face of the continued “aggression” of the Israeli Army, which for the Hezbollah leader is equivalent to a “capitulation, a defeat and the achievement of the enemy’s objectives.”

“Washington’s declaration is a ‘road map’ for the annihilation of part of the Lebanese people and the subjugation of the rest,” he indicated, reiterating that a “total cessation of aggression” by Israel on the country and the withdrawal of the “Israeli occupation” of the Lebanese territories is necessary.

Likewise, the leader of Hezbollah has assured that “turning the disarmament” of the militias into the basis of any agreement “means weakening Lebanon and threatening its existence, sowing internal division in the interest of Israel and allowing it to achieve politically what it did not achieve through war.”

“We call on Lebanese officials to end this farce and humiliation called ‘direct negotiations’, and to strengthen themselves through national unity around a sovereign state under their leadership,” he argued.

Qasem has also disassociated himself from the pact, arguing that Hezbollah “has not committed to anyone to stop resisting or responding to aggression” and stating that “as long as the occupation exists” on Lebanese territory, “resistance will continue.”

“As long as it continues, we will face it with all our forces, we will attack wherever we want and can, and as long as our towns are bombed and our people killed, the Israeli settlements will not be safe,” he stated, as reported by the Al Manar network, linked to the group.

The leader of Hezbollah also conveyed in his speech his gratitude to Iran for “fighting to recover” Lebanese lands and the rights of the Lebanese people “in the face of Israeli-American aggression despite its own conflicts.”

His words come after the head of the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Esmail Qaani, has also called for the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Lebanon to the positions they occupied before the latest conflict.

The last large-scale hostilities broke out on March 2, when Hezbollah launched projectiles into Israeli territory in retaliation for the assassination of Iran’s then supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in the offensive launched on February 28 by Israel and the United States against the Islamic Republic.

Since then, the Israeli Army’s attacks in Lebanon have left more than 3,500 dead and 10,600 injured, despite the fact that both countries agreed to a ceasefire in mid-April – which they extended a month later for 45 days – which did not stop the bombings, accompanied by a ground invasion by Israel, which even threatened a bombing campaign against the capital, Beirut.