Hezbollah won’t surrender under threats

BEIRUT, Lebanon (AFP) — Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem said Sunday his group would not surrender or lay down its weapons in response to Israeli threats, despite pressure on the Lebanese militants to disarm.

His speech came ahead of a visit Monday by US envoy Thomas Barrack during which Lebanese authorities are due to respond to a request to disarm Hezbollah by year’s end, according to a Lebanese official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“This (Israeli) threat will not make us accept surrender,” Qassem said in a televised speech to thousands of his supporters in Beirut’s southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold, during the Shiite Muslim religious commemoration of Ashura.

Lebanese leaders who took office in the aftermath of a war between Israel and Hezbollah last year that left the Iran-backed group severely weakened have repeatedly vowed a state monopoly on bearing arms, while demanding Israel comply with a November ceasefire that sought to end the hostilities.

Qassem, who succeeded longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah after an Israeli strike killed him in September, said the group’s fighters would not abandon their arms and asserted that Israel’s “aggression” must first stop.

Israel’s military has continued to occupy positions in Lebanon and to strike the country despite the November ceasefire, saying it is targeting Hezbollah sites and operatives and accusing Beirut of not doing enough to disarm the group.

Lebanon’s official National News Agency Sunday reported a series of Israeli strikes in the country’s south and east, a day after authorities said one person was killed and six others wounded in Israeli raids.Later Sunday, the Israeli military confirmed it had carried out strikes in the eastern Bekaa valley what it called Hezbollah military sites and weapons systems.

Under the ceasefire, Hezbollah was to pull its fighters back north of the Litani river, some 30 kilometers from the Israeli frontier.

Israel was to withdraw its troops from Lebanon, but has kept them deployed in five areas that it deemed strategic.

Lebanese authorities say they have been dismantling Hezbollah’s military infrastructure.

Qassem said Israel must abide by the ceasefire agreement, “withdraw from the occupied territories, stop its aggression, release the prisoners” and that reconstruction in Lebanon must begin.