Lebanon\u2019s President Joseph Aoun has met with a visiting United Nations Security Council (UNSC) delegation to discuss escalating tensions with Israel and efforts to disarm Hezbollah, a day after a wave of Israeli raids rocked the south of the country, according to Lebanon\u2019s National News Agency (NNA).<\/p>\n
Speaking with the UNSC team on Friday, Aoun urged them to pressure Israel to respect a November 2024 ceasefire it has violated on a near-daily basis and to withdraw from areas it continues to occupy in southern Lebanon.<\/p>\n list of 3 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n \u201cWe look forward to pressure from your side,\u201d said Aoun, in comments carried by the NNA.<\/p>\n Aoun earlier said the UN delegation, which also met with Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, would tour southern Lebanon to check \u201cthe situation on the ground\u201d. The trip would help the delegation \u201csee the real picture of what is happening there\u201d, as the army works to implement a plan to dismantle Hezbollah\u2019s weapons, said Aoun.<\/p>\n The UN visit comes amid tentative signs of potential deeper engagement between Lebanon and Israel that have angered Hezbollah.<\/p>\n On Wednesday, civilian representatives from the two states held their first direct talks in decades, in a move Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem slammed as a \u201cfree concession\u201d to Israel, which Lebanon is technically still at war with.<\/p>\n In comments carried by the pro-Hezbollah Al-Akhbar newspaper, Qassem said the civilian-led talks go against the policy of the Lebanese government, whose top priority should be ensuring state sovereignty.<\/p>\n Describing Israel as \u201cexpansionist\u201d, Qassem said the country has not adhered to last year\u2019s ceasefire agreement with Hezbollah and has carried out \u201cconstant\u201d attacks.<\/p>\n \u201cThis aggression is not due to Hezbollah\u2019s weapons but rather aims to gradually occupy Lebanon and establish a \u2018Greater Israel\u2019 through Lebanon,\u201d Qassem said, adding that the US has \u201cno business interfering\u201d with internal Lebanese issues, including the country\u2019s defence strategy or efforts to disarm Hezbollah.<\/p>\n Salam, for his part, said the talks with Israel \u2013 held during a meeting of the military committee monitoring their ceasefire \u2013 were \u201cpositive\u201d but downplayed their significance, saying they were not eyeing normalisation and focused only on implementing the 2024 truce.<\/p>\n Despite the apparent diplomatic opening, Israel\u2019s military followed up the Lebanon talks with another wave of attacks in southern Lebanon. On Thursday, it struck four southern Lebanese villages \u2013 its latest of hundreds of attacks, despite the 2024 truce, claiming to target Hezbollah infrastructure, but that have killed dozens of civilians and destroyed residential buildings and critical infrastructure.<\/p>\n Al Jazeera\u2019s correspondent in Beirut, Zeina Khodr, said the strikes sent a message that \u201cnegotiations will be held under fire, until Hezbollah is fully disarmed\u201d.<\/p>\n While Lebanon\u2019s government has committed to disarming Hezbollah, the group has flatly rejected the idea as long as Israel continues to bombard and occupy Lebanon.<\/p>\n Qassem said in recent days that the armed group has the right to respond to Israel\u2019s assassination of its top military chief in a strike on Beirut\u2019s southern suburbs last month.<\/p>\n Qassem called the killing of Haytham Ali Tabatabai \u201ca blatant aggression and a heinous crime\u201d, adding that Hezbollah has \u201cthe right to respond, and we will determine the timing for that\u201d.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Aoun\u2019s Information Minister Paul Morcos said the government views negotiations with Israel, set to restart on December 19, as the only way forward. \u201cThere is no other option but negotiation. This is the reality, and this is what history has taught us about wars,\u201d Aoun, a former chief of the Lebanese army, said at a cabinet meeting, according to Morcos.<\/p>\n Aoun stressed \u201cthe need for the language of negotiation \u2013 not the language of war \u2013 to prevail\u201d, and that there would be no concession over Lebanon\u2019s sovereignty, added Morcos.<\/p>\n The November 2024 ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon called for both states to halt hostilities, with Lebanon responsible for preventing armed groups from attacking Israel and Israel committed to ending offensive military actions.<\/p>\n However, Israeli forces continue to occupy at least five positions inside Lebanese territory and have not withdrawn despite the agreement\u2019s terms. They have also conducted near-daily attacks across Lebanon that have killed more than 300 people, including at least 127 civilians, according to the UN.<\/p>\n Israel claims its operations are targeting Hezbollah members and infrastructure to prevent the armed group from rebuilding its military capabilities and reemerging as a force in the country.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Lebanon\u2019s President Joseph Aoun has met with a visiting United Nations Security Council (UNSC) delegation to discuss escalating tensions with Israel and efforts to disarm Hezbollah, a day after a wave of Israeli raids rocked the south of the country, according to Lebanon\u2019s National News Agency (NNA). Speaking with the UNSC team on Friday, Aoun […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4453,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle-east-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4452\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
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