Lebanese Shiite ministers walk out of a Cabinet meeting over plan to disarm Hezbollah
BEIRUT (AP) — Shiite members of Lebanon’s Cabinet walked out a government meeting on Thursday in protest of a proposed plan to disarm the Hezbollah militant group and political organization. The rest of the Cabinet then voted in favor of the U.S.-backed plan to disarm the group and implement a ceasefire with Israel.
Tensions have been rising in Lebanon amid increased domestic and international pressure for Hezbollah to give up its remaining arsenal after a bruising war with Israel that ended last November with a U.S.-brokered ceasefire. Hezbollah itself has doubled down on its refusal to disarm.
The four ministers who walked out before the vote included members of Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc and the allied Amal party, as well as independent Shiite parliamentarian Fadi Makki.
Makki said on X that he had “tried to work on bridging the gaps and bringing viewpoints closer between all parties, but I didn’t succeed.”
He said he decided to pull out of the meeting after the other Shiite ministers left. “I couldn’t bear the responsibility of making such a significant decision in the absence of a key component from the discussion,” he said.
The plan to disarm Hezbollah
The Lebanese government asked the national army on Tuesday to prepare a plan in which only state institutions in the small nation will have weapons by the end of the year.
After the Cabinet meeting, Hezbollah accused the government of caving to United States and Israeli pressure and said it would “treat this decision as if it does not exist.”
Information Minister Paul Morcos later said the Cabinet had voted to adopt a list of general goals laid out in a proposal submitted by U.S. envoy Tom Barrack to Lebanese officials.
They include the “gradual end of the armed presence of all non-state actors, including Hezbollah, in all Lebanese territory,” the withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon, a halt to Israeli airstrikes and the release of Lebanese prisoners held in Israel, as well as the eventual demarcation of the still-disputed Lebanon-Israel border, he said.
The details of the U.S. proposal are still under discussion, Morcos added.
Hezbollah officials have said the group will not discuss giving up its remaining arsenal until Israel withdraws from five hills it is occupying inside Lebanon and stops almost daily airstrikes. The strikes have killed or wounded hundreds of people, most of them Hezbollah members, since the latest Hezbollah-Israel war ended in November.
While the Cabinet meeting was still underway, an Israeli strike on the road leading to Lebanon’s main border crossing with Syria killed five people and injured 10 others, Lebanon’s health ministry said. There was no immediate comment from Israel.
Israel has accused Hezbollah of trying to rebuild its military capabilities and said it is protecting its border. Since the ceasefire, Hezbollah has claimed responsibility for one attack across the border.
The ceasefire agreement mandated that both Hezbollah and Israel should withdraw from southern Lebanon but left vague how Hezbollah’s weapons and military facilities farther north of the border area would be treated, saying Lebanese authorities should dismantle unauthorized facilities, starting with the area south of the Litani River.
Hezbollah claims the deal only applies to the area south of the Litani, while Israel and the U.S. say it mandates disarmament of the group throughout Lebanon.
International efforts for peace
Andrea Tenenti, a spokesperson for the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, said that peacekeepers — along Lebanese army soldiers — recently found a “vast network of fortified tunnels” in different areas of southern Lebanon.
They include “several bunkers, artillery pieces, multiple rocket launchers, hundreds of shells and rockets, anti-tank mines, and other explosive devices,” he said.
Tenenti did not specify what group was behind the tunnels and the arms.
A member of the U.S. Congress said that Washington will push Israel to withdraw from all of southern Lebanon if the Lebanese army asserts full control over the country.
“We will push hard to make sure that there is — and this is something that I will work with the Israelis on — a complete withdrawal in return for the Lebanese Armed Forces showing its ability to secure all Lebanon,” California Republican Rep. Darrell Issa said, after meeting with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun in Beirut.
He did not specify whether the U.S. would ask Israel to start withdrawing its forces from the territory it is occupying in southern Lebanon before or after Hezbollah gives up its arsenal.
Issa, who is of Lebanese origin, said the U.S. must “help all the neighbors around understand that it is the exclusive right of the Lebanese Armed Forces to make decisions.”
“If there’s something that goes wrong, the Lebanese Armed Forces will be asked to to be responsible,” he said.
By ABBY SEWELL
Associated Press
