Hezbollah’s Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah on Monday reiterated his opposition to Article 16 of UN Security Council Resolution 2650, under which the mandate of the United Nations Interim Forces in South Lebanon (UNIFIL) was renewed for one year until August 31.

This article authorizes UNIFIL to carry out its mission in South Lebanon “without prior authorization” and “independently” of the Lebanese army.

“The Security Council wants to maintain this article at the request of the United States,” he launched, during a televised speech delivered to mark what he claimed is the “second liberation” in reference to the end of operation “Dawn of the Jurds”, which had pitted the army and members of Hezbollah against jihadists in August 2017.

“Yet the Security Council is unaware of Israeli violations of Lebanese air, land and sea space,” he continued, stressing that the United States’ only concern is that “Lebanon does not pose a threat to Israel”. “They want UNIFIL to engage in espionage for the benefit of Israel,” he said.

Nasrallah thanked the “Lebanese government for wanting to rectify this error (the introduction of Article 16)”, which he described as “an attack on Lebanon’s sovereignty”, saying that the inhabitants of southern Lebanon “will oppose patrols by UNIFIL independently of the army.”

The presidential election

On the presidential election, Nasrallah lashed out at the camp of sovereigntists (anti-Hezbollah) whom he accused of obstructing the election of its candidate, Marada leader Sleiman Frangieh, by provoking a quorum failure. However, Nasrallah seems to forget that it was his camp and that of his allies which, throughout the twelve parliamentary sessions devoted to the election of a president, continually provoked a lack of quorum to prevent the sovereigntist camp’s candidate, Michel Moawad and – in a second stage, former Finance Minister Jihad Azour – from acceding to the top post.

“They say they want a president who builds a state to fight Hezbollah, not to solve people’s problems”, continued the leader of the pro-Iranian party. In his opinion, that exposes “the project they are serving”, namely the “Israeli project”. “Israel and the United States are the first to call for the disarmament of Hezbollah,” he said.

He also affirmed that he was ready for dialogue on the issue of the presidential election. “As we are not weak and we know how to take the necessary decisions, we are not afraid of dialogue… which is not the case with the other parties,” Nasrallah said. He then asked: “Should we force them into dialogue?”

The FPM-Hezb relationship

Regarding his group’s relationship with the Free Patriotic Movement, Nasrallah said that a “serious dialogue” has been established between the two parties, but that it “needs time” to materialize. “If we reach an agreement on extended decentralization and the trust fund, we will discuss it with our allies”, he said, adding that dialogue with the FPM is conducted on behalf of Hezbollah only, not its allies.

Responding to Israeli threats to assassinate senior Hezbollah officials in Lebanon, Nasrallah said the response would be “firm”. “We will not accept any change in the rules of engagement,” he stressed.

He then concluded by reasserting his attachment to the triptych of “army-people-resistance”, which he said has achieved many gains.