Shafaq News- Beirut

Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem on Friday ruled out surrender to Israel despite the unequal balance of power, rejecting the Lebanon-Israel negotiating framework in full.

In a televised speech, Qassem described the June 26 framework as Israeli dictates written in Israeli ink, objecting both to direct negotiations with Israel and to “the entire content from beginning to end.” He also accused the government of directing pressure at Hezbollah rather than Israel over the past 15 months and operating under outside tutelage, calling on officials to reverse what he described as a humiliating mistake.

Earlier today, after meeting Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, US Ambassador Michel Issa claimed that Israeli attacks and demolitions in southern Lebanon would stop once Hezbollah handed over its weapons.

The US-brokered deal links a progressive Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon to the Lebanese government’s verified disarmament of non-state armed groups. Hezbollah was not a party to the agreement and has rejected giving up its weapons, while Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has insisted that Israeli forces will not withdraw from southern Lebanon until Hezbollah is disarmed.

Qassem instead backed the June US-Iran Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding, which extended a ceasefire across fronts including Lebanon and included commitments on Lebanese sovereignty and territorial integrity, arguing that it “restrained Israeli attacks and enabled displaced [Lebanese] to return.”

Read more: Hezbollah: Direct Israel talks humiliated Lebanon