BEIRUT, August 5. /TASS/. Hezbollah refuses to lay down arms as this will not help consolidate Lebanon’s sovereignty and stop Israel’s aggression, Hezbollah Secretary General Naim Qassem said.
"If we surrender our weapons, Israel’s aggression will not stop. That is why we will never accept any schedule for disarming our units under the occupation," he said in a televised address. "Israel must first implement the ceasefire agreement of November 27, 2024."
He slammed the United States’ plan for withdrawing its troops from those areas in southern Lebanon that are under their control in exchange for Hezbollah’s surrendering 50% of its arsenals. "We should not be lured into this trap for the sake of receiving financial assistance. Otherwise we will become their [US’] henchmen," he stressed.
Qassem accused the United States of hindering supplies of state-of-the-art weapons to the Lebanese army that might be harmful for Israel. "Now they want to weaken Lebanon even more by depriving it of the military potential for resistance," he stressed.
Qassem’s statement came amid discussions in the Lebanese government about a plan to disarm non-government armed units "so that all the weapons be concentrated solely in the hands of the Lebanese army. According to the Lebanon 24 news portal, US Special Envoy for the Middle East Tom Barrack gave the Lebanese authorities 30 days to implement the first stage of this plan.