Sheikh Qassem says Hezbollah will not give up its weapons until Israel’s occupation e
Sheikh Qassem says Hezbollah will not give up its weapons until Israel’s occupation ends
M.U.H
15/08/202518
The secretary general of Lebanon's Hezbollah, Sheikh Naim Qassem, has stressed that the resistance movement will not lay down its weapons until the Israeli occupation ends, warning that the Beirut government’s decision on disarmament could create civil strife.
He made the remarks in a speech on Friday on the occasion of Arba’een, the 40th day after the martyrdom anniversary of Imam Hussein (AS), the third Shia Imam and the grandson of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH), who was killed in the Battle of Karbala in southern Iraq in 680 AD while resisting the much larger army of the despot Umayyad ruler of the time, Yazid.
“The resistance will not surrender its weapons as long as occupation persists and aggression continues,” Qassem said, and vowed that Hezbollah will continue to resist against “falsehood”, describing the US and Israel as the modern-day Yazid.
Referring to the latest decision made by the Lebanese cabinet on Hezbollah disarmament, Qassem said "The government is implementing an American order and serve the Israeli project.”
Hezbollah will fight against the US-Israeli project and “we are confident of victory”, he stated.
He held the Lebanese government “fully responsible for any strife that may occur”, saying “We don’t want it, but there are those who are working towards it.”
The Hezbollah chief warned the government against “dragging the army into internal strife”, saying the movements Hezbollah and Amal opted not to take to the streets after the decision, but he didn’t rule out protests, if no amendments were made.
“If confrontation is imposed, we are ready for it,” he said.
The Hezbollah chief stressed that the decision, which stipulates stripping Lebanon and its resistance and people of defensive weapons against any aggression, means “facilitating the killing of the resistance fighters and their families as well as their expulsion from their homes”, stressing that the government should have expelled the Israeli troops from Lebanese territories instead.
He urged the cabinet to convene to discuss confronting the aggression and rebuilding the country, "not to hand over the country to an insatiable Israeli aggressor or an American tyrant with limitless greed".
Qassem added that the “very serious” decision violates the Lebanese constitution that stipulates that there is no legitimacy for any authority that contradicts the pact of mutual coexistence.
He emphasized that the government can’t strip the resistance’s weapons of legitimacy, saying the resistance derives its legitimacy from the Taif Agreement—negotiated in Saudi Arabia’s Taif in 1989, which ended the civil war in Lebanon— and the blood of its martyrs, “not from you”.
Sheikh Qassem also pointed to the important role played by the resistance in preserving the sovereignty of the country and confronting Israel’s aggressions.
On August 5, Lebanon’s Prime Minister Nawaf Salam tasked the country’s army to develop a plan to restrict weapons to the state by the end of the year, a decision that aims at disarming the Hezbollah resistance movement that has for decades defended the country from external aggression, especially from the Israeli enemy.
Two days later, during a cabinet meeting, the Lebanese government officials further discussed the US proposal aimed at disarming Hezbollah and endorsed its “objectives”.
