News24 | Lebanon won’t accept Israel occupation, President Aoun vows as Rubio condemns Hezbollah

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun speaks at a press conference with President Steinmeier at the presidential palace.

• Lebanese President Joseph Aoun called for Israel to withdraw from the country’s south.
• Israel’s military has also been conducting strikes despite a ceasefire supposed to be in force since 17 April.
• US Secretary of State Marco Rubio condemned Hezbollah.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun on Monday said Israel’s withdrawal from the country’s south was a “non-negotiable” demand that authorities would pursue through negotiations, days ahead of a new round of talks in Washington.

In a statement commemorating Israel’s previous withdrawal from south Lebanon in 2000 after some two decades of occupation, Aoun said that “this year, the anniversary of the liberation comes as Lebanon is weighed down by a painful reality.”

“Israeli attacks have not stopped and our dear southern villages are still suffering under a renewed occupation,” he said.

Israeli troops who invaded Lebanon during the latest war with Hezbollah began on 2 March are operating inside a self-declared “yellow line” running around 10km deep inside Lebanese territory.

Israel’s military has also been conducting heavy strikes well beyond that area despite a ceasefire supposed to be in force since 17 April.

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“Lebanon will not accept this reality,” Aoun said.

He added:

Lebanon and Israel began landmark US-brokered talks in April, and are preparing for a fourth round in early June, preceded by a meeting between military delegations at the Pentagon on 29 May.

Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem on Sunday reiterated his opposition to the direct talks with Israel and his group’s refusal to disarm, as it keeps up attacks on Israeli targets in south Lebanon and across the border.

“If this government is incapable of guaranteeing sovereignty, it should go,” Qassem said, adding: “Where is the sovereignty if America runs the cogs of the Lebanese state?”

Aoun said that negotiations were “neither a concession nor a surrender”.

“The liberation of the south is a duty borne by the state with the support of its people,” the president added.

Lebanese authorities have committed to disarming Hezbollah and they prohibited its military activities after it drew Lebanon into the Middle East war with rocket fire at Israel, in retaliation for strikes that killed Iran’s supreme leader.

On Sunday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio condemned what he called Hezbollah’s “reckless call to overthrow Lebanon’s democratically elected government”, accusing it of “actively trying to drag Lebanon back into chaos and destruction”.

Rubio told reporters that “Israel always has a right to protect itself.”

“If Hezbollah is going to launch missiles or launches missiles at them, Israel has every right to respond to that, or to prevent that from happening,” he said.

“That’s always been understood. It’s being understood during the ceasefire.”

Qassem had said that “the people have the right to go down onto the streets and to bring down the government” in response to Israeli attacks and US sanctions on the Hezbollah-linked Al-Qard Al-Hassan financial institution, which Washington wants Beirut to shut down.

Israel’s military on Monday warned residents of 10 villages, most of them in southern Lebanon, to evacuate their homes ahead of expected strikes against alleged Hezbollah targets.

“In light of Hezbollah’s violation of the ceasefire agreement, the Israel Defence Forces are compelled to operate against it with force,” the military’s Arabic-language spokesperson, Colonel Avichay Adraee, said in a social media post, listing the names of the villages.

“For your safety, you must evacuate your homes immediately and move at least 1 000 metres away from these towns and villages to open areas.”