BEIRUT (AP) — The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah will not abide by any agreement that might result from direct Lebanon-Israel talks in the United States, a negotiation the group firmly opposes, a senior Hezbollah official said Monday.
Wafiq Safa, a senior member of Hezbollah’s political council, spoke ahead of scheduled talks in Washington between the Lebanese and Israeli ambassadors to the US. It will be the first time in decades that envoys from Lebanon and Israel, which do not have diplomatic relations, will meet face-to-face in face-to-face talks.
“As for the outcome of this negotiation between Lebanon and its enemy Israel, we are not concerned or concerned about them at all,” Safa told The Associated Press.
“We are not bound by what they agree to,” he added in a rare interview with international media. He spoke next to a cemetery as an Israeli drone buzzed overhead.
Historic negotiations at a sensitive time
Lebanese officials are seeking to broker a ceasefire in the Israel-Hezbollah war in negotiations with the US.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the goal is the disarmament of Hezbollah and a potential peace agreement between Lebanon and Israel. Shosh Bedrosian, Prime Minister Netanyahu’s spokesman, said on Monday there would be no ceasefire with Hezbollah.
Additionally, during the US-Iran peace talks held last weekend in Pakistan, Iran sought to include Lebanon in any ceasefire agreement of its own with the US. Israel and the US have confirmed that Lebanon will not participate.
Hours after Tehran and Washington announced a ceasefire last Wednesday, Israel launched more than 100 attacks across Lebanon, including densely populated residential and commercial areas in central Beirut.
And although the US-Iran talks broke down without an agreement, Safa said Hezbollah had been informed that Iran “may demand a halt to attacks” across the entire administrative area of Beirut, the Lebanese capital, including the southern suburbs of Beirut – a Hezbollah-strong area known as Dahiyeh.
Israeli attacks on Beirut and its southern suburbs have paused since Wednesday but intense fighting continues in southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah’s participation in the war
Israel and Hezbollah have fought multiple wars since the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group was founded in the 1980s as a guerrilla force fighting against Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon at the time.
The latest round began on March 2, two days after Israel and the US launched war with Iran. Hezbollah entered the war, firing rockets across the border into Israel. Israel responded with aerial bombardments and ground invasions.
Since then, the war has displaced more than 1 million people in Lebanon and killed more than 2,000 people, including more than 500 women, children and medical workers. Many Lebanese have blamed Hezbollah for drawing Lebanon into the war, accusing it of acting on behalf of Iran, its patron.
Safa believes that Hezbollah’s actions are preemptive because the country’s leaders believe that “Israel is preparing for a second war with Lebanon” with the aim of destroying Hezbollah.
It was “the right time for Hezbollah… to rebuild a new equation” and restore deterrence against Israel, he said, denying any previous agreement with Tehran that Hezbollah would go to war if Iran was attacked.
After a US-brokered ceasefire halted the final Israel-Hezbollah war in November 2024, Israel continued to carry out near-daily attacks in Lebanon that it said were aimed at preventing the group from rebuilding. Safa said that Hezbollah wants to avoid a return to that status quo.
‘Black Wednesday’
Israel claims that its attacks on Lebanon last Wednesday killed more than 250 Hezbollah fighters. According to the Lebanese Ministry of Health, more than 100 women and children were among the more than 350 people who died.
That means, according to Israel’s assertion, every adult male killed that day was a member of Hezbollah.
“None of our officials or officers were killed in Beirut,” Safa said. “Those who died in Beirut were 100% civilians.” He did not deny that members of the group were killed outside the Lebanese capital.
Israel claims to have killed Hezbollah leader Naim Kassem’s secretary and his nephew, Ali Yusuf Harshi, as well as several senior commanders.
Safa said Kassem’s secretary was not killed, although “it is possible that a relative of his was killed.”
He also confirmed for the first time that he was injured in the previous Israel-Hezbollah war, in 2024, after being the target of two Israeli attacks in Beirut, “but God granted me survival.”
Late Monday, in a televised speech, Kassem himself called on Lebanon to withdraw from direct negotiations with Israel, calling the talks a “free concession” to Israel and the United States.
Relations deteriorated with the government
The relationship between the Lebanese government and Hezbollah – which is not only a militant group but also a political party with a parliamentary bloc – has become increasingly tense.
The government last year approved a plan to remove all weapons that were not the property of the state – the security forces or the army – and later said it had largely completed the mission south of the Litani River, where Hezbollah rebels are now fighting Israeli forces.
After March 2, the government went further, declaring Hezbollah’s armed wing illegal.
Safa said Hezbollah is not currently talking directly to President Joseph Aoun or Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, but all their communications are through National Assembly Speaker Nabih Berri, head of the Amal party, an ally of Hezbollah.
Safa said that if there is a ceasefire and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Lebanon, Hezbollah – which calls itself a “resistance” movement against its archenemy Israel – is ready to negotiate with the Lebanese government over the fate of its weapons.
“The issue of resistance weapons is a Lebanese issue and has nothing to do with Israel or the United States,” he said.