A senior Hezbollah official confirmed yesterday, Monday, that the party will not abide by any agreements that may result from direct talks between Lebanon and Israel in the United States, expressing its complete rejection of these negotiations.
On the eve of the upcoming meeting in Washington between the Lebanese and Israeli ambassadors to the United States, Wafik Safa, a member of the party’s political council, stated that the results of these negotiations “do not concern the party at all.”
In an interview with the Associated Press, he added: “As for the results of these negotiations between Lebanon and the Israeli enemy, we are not interested in them and they do not concern us at all… and we are not bound by what they agree on.”
Safa’s statements came during a rare interview with an international media outlet, conducted near a cemetery, while an Israeli drone was flying in the air, in a scene that reflects the sensitivity of the political and field situation.
The upcoming Washington talks are considered the first direct meeting in decades between official envoys from Lebanon and Israel, at a time when Lebanese officials are seeking to consolidate the ceasefire and stop the ongoing military escalation.
On the other hand, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that his government’s goal is to disarm Hezbollah and reach a possible peace agreement with Lebanon, while his spokeswoman confirmed that there is no intention of a ceasefire with the party at the present time.
These developments also coincided with US-Iranian talks held in Pakistan last weekend, where Tehran sought to include Lebanon in any potential ceasefire understanding, but Israel and the United States stressed that Lebanon is not part of this path.
After declaring a truce between Tehran and Washington last Wednesday, Israel launched more than 100 raids on Lebanese areas, including residential and commercial neighborhoods in Beirut. Although the raids on the capital and its southern suburbs have stopped since then, violent clashes continue in southern Lebanon.
Safa said that the party was informed that Iran had managed to obtain a “cessation of attacks” in the administrative scope of Beirut, including the southern suburbs.
The final round of the war broke out on March 2, two days after a confrontation broke out between Israel and the United States on one side and Iran on the other. Then Hezbollah intervened by launching missiles across the border, and Israel responded with air bombardment and ground operations.
Since then, the war has led to the displacement of more than a million people inside Lebanon, and the martyrdom of more than 2,000 people, including more than 500 women, children, and medical workers, according to announced data.
The party believes that its intervention in the confrontation was a pre-emptive measure, considering that Israel was preparing for a second battle with Lebanon with the aim of destroying it. Safa stressed that the goal was “to rebuild a new deterrence equation,” denying the existence of a prior agreement with Iran regarding entering the war.
In what Israel described as a severe blow, it announced that raids last Wednesday resulted in the killing of more than 250 Hezbollah members, while the Lebanese Ministry of Health announced the martyrdom of more than 350 people, including more than 100 women and children.
Safa rejected the Israeli story about the fall of leadership cadres in Beirut, stressing that “those who were killed in the capital were 100% civilians,” without denying the fall of members of the party outside it.
He also denied the killing of the party’s Secretary-General, Naeem Qassem, after Israel announced that he had been targeted, noting that “perhaps one of his relatives was killed.”
Safa revealed for the first time that he was injured during the 2024 war after being targeted by two raids in Beirut, adding: “But God wrote for me to survive.”
In a subsequent televised speech, Naim Qassem called for Lebanon to withdraw from direct talks with Israel, describing them as a “free concession.”
These positions come in light of increasing tension between the Lebanese government and Hezbollah, after the government approved a plan to remove all non-state weapons, and later announced that the mission south of the Litani River was largely accomplished.
After March 2, the government declared the party’s military wing illegal, in an unprecedented step.
Safa said that the party is not currently communicating directly with President Joseph Aoun or Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, and that communications are taking place through Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri.
He concluded by stressing that in the event of a ceasefire and the withdrawal of Israeli forces, the party is ready to negotiate with the Lebanese government regarding the fate of its weapons, stressing that “the issue of resistance weapons is an internal Lebanese matter that neither Israel nor the United States has anything to do with.”
Between Washington’s negotiations and the ongoing fire to the south, Lebanon appears to be standing at a sharp political crossroads, where internal calculations intertwine with external bets, while the fate of any settlement remains dependent on balances whose features are not yet clear.
