The leader of Hezbollah proclaimed on Monday that its “resistance is ongoing, strong, and cannot be defeated,” even as the Lebanese president called their actions a “betrayal to the Lebanese people.”
Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem said the Lebanese government should halt its direct negotiations with Israel, accusing it of working “side-by-side with the Israeli enemy against its own people.”
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The United States is trying to broker a new deal between the two neighboring countries after Hezbollah dragged Lebanon back into war with the attacks against Israel in early March, which violated the ceasefire deal that had been in place, following the U.S. and Israeli opening strikes on Iran.
While Qassem said the direct negotiations with Israel are a betrayal of the Lebanese people, the country’s president, Joseph Aoun, responded to those arguments by saying, “Betrayal is carried out by those who take their country to war to serve foreign interests.”
“How long will the people of the south continue to pay the price for the wars of others on our land? If the war were for Lebanon, we would support it — but when its purpose is to serve the interests of others, I reject the war entirely,” Aoun said on Monday.
The ambassadors of both countries have met in Washington, D.C., twice in recent weeks, the first of which was the first direct engagement between them in decades.
After the second meeting, President Donald Trump announced that the ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon would be extended for another three weeks, though it’s unclear whether Hezbollah would abide by the deal.
As part of the agreement, Trump said the U.S. was “going to work with Lebanon in order to help it protect itself from Hezbollah,” though it’s still unknown if the Lebanese government and armed forces will be able to extricate the country from Hezbollah’s grip.
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Despite the ceasefire, the two sides have continued to exchange near-daily attacks. Hezbollah has fired drones and rockets at Israeli communities in the northern part of the country, while Israeli troops have bombarded southern Lebanon and its ground forces have seized territory to dismantle the group’s terrorist infrastructure.
On Monday, Israeli forces said they launched a wave of airstrikes targeting Hezbollah infrastructure in the Beqaa Valley, among other areas. It was the first time the Israeli military struck that area of Lebanon in about three weeks. Under the terms of the ceasefire, Israel’s military is allowed to continue defensive operations.
