Hezbollah rejects Israel-Lebanon agreement as Israeli attacks hit south

Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem has rejected the framework agreement signed by Lebanon and Israel in Washington DC, calling it “humiliating, shameful and a surrender of sovereignty” for Beirut. In a statement released on Saturday, Qassem rejected linking Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon to Hezbollah’s disarmament, which is a key part of the US-mediated agreement signed on Friday. Recommended Stories list of 4 items end of list “We will continue as a resistance in the field to defeat the occupation [Israel] … We did not leave the field under difficult circumstances and we will not abandon it,” Qassem said. The Hezbollah leader also accused Lebanon’s government of legitimising Israel’s occupation “for many years to come” by signing the agreement with Israel, saying that it “could lead to the annexation of these lands to the Zionist entity”. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and other officials have suggested that Israel might remain in Lebanon regardless of Hezbollah’s disarmament. “We are there until Hezbollah disarms and I think also beyond that, because we need defendable borders,” Smotrich said earlier this week. The agreement does not force Israel to withdraw from southern Lebanon. As Al Jazeera’s Lebanon correspondent Zeina Khodr noted: “The word withdrawal is not in [the] text”. …