By AFP – Agence France Presse
- Order Reprints
- Print Article
Text size
ADDS more Qassem quotes
Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem said Wednesday his group would not accept any truce that violated Lebanese sovereignty, as Israel demanded freedom to act against the Iran-backed movement in the event of a deal.
Nearly a year of cross-border exchanges of fire between Israel and Hezbollah escalated into war in September, with Israel conducting an extensive bombing campaign and sending ground troops into southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah seeks a “complete and comprehensive end to the aggression” and “the preservation of Lebanon’s sovereignty… the Israeli enemy cannot enter (Lebanese territory) whenever it wants”, Qassem said in a pre-recorded speech Wednesday.
“Israel cannot defeat us and cannot impose its conditions on us,” he added, as US envoy Amos Hochstein concluded a two-day visit to Beirut seeking to broker a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hezbollah.
Hochstein had said in Beirut on Tuesday that he saw “a real opportunity” to end the fighting, and on Wednesday said he was heading to Israel to “try to bring this to a close if we can”.
He met twice in Beirut with parliament speaker Nabih Berri, a Hezbollah ally who has led mediation efforts on behalf of the Iran-backed group.
“We have received the (US) paper and we have made some remarks,” Qassem said, adding that the comments “and those of speaker Berri, which are in harmony, have been communicated to the American envoy”.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said Wednesday that any ceasefire deal must ensure Israel had the “freedom to act” against the Lebanese militant group.
“In any agreement we will reach, we will need to keep the freedom to act if there will be violations,” he told foreign ambassadors ahead of Hochstein’s expected arrival in Israel.
The Hezbollah chief said a ceasefire depended on “the Israeli response and the seriousness” of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“The Israeli side expects, through an agreement, to get what it was unable to obtain on the battlefield, and that is not possible,” he said.
Qassem also said that a “response must be expected on central Tel Aviv” after deadly strikes on three central Beirut districts in recent days.
One of the strikes killed Hezbollah spokesman Mohammed Afif and four members of his media team.
“We have prepared for a long battle,” Qassem said, and Hezbollah will bear “a war of attrition… because we are defending our land and our country”.
After the war, he said Hezbollah would “bring an effective contribution to the election of a president”, in a country without a head of state for more than two years.
Hezbollah’s opponents accuse the Shiite Muslim movement of blocking the process and seeking to impose its preferred candidate.
lk-at/lg/smw