Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem delivered a televised address tonight, his sixth since the militant group initiated this round of fighting on March 2. He spoke one day before Lebanese and Israeli envoys are set to begin negotiations at the U.S. State Department on April 14, a watershed moment in the history of ties between the two countries.
Qassem called on Lebanese authorities to cancel the planned meeting, calling negotiations pointless, and promising Hezbollah would fight on “until their last breath.”
Negotiations
The Secretary General said, “we reject negotiations with the Israeli entity, as they are futile and require a Lebanese agreement and consensus,” adding “we call for a historic stance by canceling the negotiations.”
He stuck to maximalist demands calling for a “complete cessation of aggression and the immediate withdrawal from all territories,” before stressing that “the path that acheives sovereignty and saves Lebanon is the implementation of the ceasefire agreement.”
Comments to the Lebanese State
Qassem also called on the Lebanese authorities to “retract its decision to consider [Hezbollah] outsiders,” referring to the formal banning of all “military and security activities” by Hezbollah on March 2.
Hezbollah’s leader addressed the Lebanese state directly, saying, “you neither fight, nor let others fight, nor confront, nor let others confront,” adding that “as long as the authorities facilitate the aggression, the aggression will continue.”
“Mr. President,” he said, “they are pressuring you to confront your own people.”
Developments in the War
Since the large-scale strikes of April 8, the war’s center of gravity has decisively moved south, largely concentrated around the major southern town of Bint Jbeil, which the IDF said it had completely surrounded on April 13.
On April 10, Lebanese and Israeli ambassadors to the United States held their first direct phone call since 1983, arranging the terms for meetings which will begin tomorrow in Washington DC.
Lebanese Foreign Minister Youssef Raggi said Lebanon was trying to reach a ceasefire through direct negotiations that "effectively established the separation between the Lebanese file and the Iranian track.”
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