Shiite ministers walk out as Lebanon’s Cabinet debates army plan to disarm Hezbollah
BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon’s Cabinet discussed Friday a plan drawn up by the Lebanese army to disarm the Hezbollah militant group and consolidate weapons in the hands of the state but appeared to back off from a previously announced deadline to implement it by the end of the year.
Upon the arrival of the army chief, Gen. Rudolph Haikal, ministers from Hezbollah’s political bloc as well as the allied Shiite Amal party and an independent Shiite minister, Fadi Makki, withdrew from the meeting room. The Hezbollah and Amal ministers then left the government palace.
The Shiite ministers had also walked out in protest from the meeting last month in which the Cabinet commissioned the army with drawing up a disarmament plan under which only state institutions in the small nation will have weapons by the end of the year.
Information Minister Paul Morcos said after Friday’s meeting that the army “will start implementing the plan, but according to the available resources — there are limited material and human logistical resources” and that the military “has the right of operational discretion.”
He did not specify a new timeline for implementation.
Morcos also said that Israel had not held up its end of the agreement laid out in a U.S.-brokered ceasefire that halted the latest Israel-Hezbollah war in November. Since then, Israeli forces have continued to occupy five strategic hills inside Lebanese territory and to carry out near-daily airstrikes.
“Israel, like Lebanon, has clear obligations” under the agreement, Morcos said. “However, its continued violations constitute evidence of its reneging on these obligations and seriously threaten regional security and stability. ”
Israel’s military says its strikes aim to prevent Hezbollah from rearming and to protect residents of its northern border area.
Since the ceasefire, Hezbollah has been under increasing domestic and international pressure to give up its remaining arsenal.
Hezbollah officials have said that the group will not consider disarmament until Israel withdraws from all Lebanese territory and halts its attacks.
After last month’s decision to pursue a disarmament plan, 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.”
A Hezbollah official who spoke on condition of anonymity, in accordance with the group’s procedures, said Friday that the ministers had agreed to withdraw when the army commander arrived “because we consider that this plan comes out of an illegal decision … and we will not debate a matter that is built on a basis that we do not recognize as legal.”
Lebanese officials proceeded with caution on disarmament, fearing that an attempt to take Hezbollah’s remaining weapons by force could trigger civil conflict.
Since the ceasefire, the Lebanese army has regularly collected caches of weapons and ammunition from the area south of the Litani River, from which Hezbollah has largely withdrawn, but the group’s heavier missiles and drones have remained hidden.
The Israel-Hezbollah war started when Hezbollah began firing rockets across the border on Oct. 8, 2023, one day after a deadly Hamas-led incursion into southern Israel that sparked the war in Gaza. Israel responded with shelling and airstrikes in Lebanon, and the two sides became locked in an escalating conflict that became a full-blown war in late September last year.
The Israel-Hezbollah war killed over 4,000 people in Lebanon, including hundreds of civilians, and caused destruction worth $11 billion, according to the World Bank. Much-needed international funding for reconstruction is likely to be contingent on Hezbollah’s disarmament.
In the days ahead of Friday’s Cabinet session, Israel intensified its strikes in southern Lebanon. Lebanese health officials said Thursday that a series of Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon the day before killed four people and injured 17, including four children.
Lebanon’s foreign ministry in a statement condemned the strikes and called on “the international community to pressure Israel to halt its ongoing attacks and respect Lebanon’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, and the safety of its people.”
The Israeli army said in statements that it had targeted Hezbollah military sites and a facility in the village of Ansariyeh that it said was storing “engineering equipment designated for the organization’s reconstruction and to advance terrorist plans.” An Associated Press photographer who visited the site afterwards found a lot storing bulldozers.
On Wednesday the U.N. peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, UNIFIL, said Israeli drones dropped four grenades close to its peacekeepers as they were working to clear roadblocks near the border. The Israeli army said that it didn’t intentionally target the peacekeepers, but dropped several sonic bombs near a suspect in the border area.
By ABBY SEWELL
Associated Press
