Hezbollah’s deputy leader says group would stop fighting with Israel after Gaza cease-fire
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- čas přidán 6. 07. 2024
- (2 Jul 2024)
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Beirut - 2 July 2024
1. Deputy chief of Hezbollah Sheikh Naim Kassem entering room for interview
2. Wide of Abby Sewell, AP news director for Syria, Lebanon and Iraq sitting during interview with Kassem
3. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Sheikh Naim Kassem, Hezbollah's deputy Chief:
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“The third phase that Israel talks about in Gaza is still unclear. It could be a prelude to a cease-fire and an agreement with the Palestinians, it could be a continuation of the war in another form, or it could be a transitional phase. We in Lebanon, as Hezbollah, cannot decide how to deal with this new phase because it is unclear in its features. However, we have previously announced that if the next phase is a cease-fire, we will stop firing in Lebanon. Will this happen? We do not know. From now until this transitional phase, I do not imagine that there are conditions for war. We do not want war, and it does not seem that the other side, the Israeli entity, has the ability or the decision for war.”
4. Close of Kassem’s hand
5. Close of Kassem’s eyes
6. Close of camera screen
7. Wide of interview
STORYLINE:
The deputy leader of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah said Tuesday that the only path to cessation of hostilities on the Lebanon-Israel border is a full cease-fire in Gaza.
“If the next phase is a cease-fire, we will stop firing in Lebanon,” Hezbollah’s deputy leader, Sheikh Naim Kassem, said in an interview with The Associated Press at the group’s political office in Beirut’s southern suburbs.
Hezbollah's participation in the Israel-Hamas war has been as a “support front” for its ally, Hamas, Kassem said, and “if the war stops, this military support will no longer exist.”
But, he said, if Israel scales back its military operations without a formal cease-fire agreement and full withdrawal from Gaza, the implications for the Lebanon-Israel border conflict are less clear.
In recent weeks, with Gaza cease-fire talks faltering, fears have increased of an escalation on the Lebanon-Israel front.
Hezbollah has traded near-daily strikes with Israeli forces along their border over the past nine months.
The low-level conflict between Israel and Hezbollah has displaced tens of thousands on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border.
Months of internationally brokered Gaza cease-fire talks have repeatedly failed.
Hamas has demanded an end to the war, and not just a pause in fighting, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has refused to make such a commitment until Israel realizes its goals of destroying Hamas’ military and governing capabilities and brings home the roughly 120 hostages held by Hamas.
Last month, the Israeli army said it has “approved and validated” plans for an offensive in Lebanon if no diplomatic solution is reached to the ongoing clashes.
Any decision to launch such an operation would have to come from the country’s political leadership.
Some Israeli officials have said they are seeking a diplomatic solution to the standoff and hope to avoid war.
At the same time, they have warned that the scenes of destruction seen in Gaza will be repeated in Lebanon if war breaks out.
Hezbollah, meanwhile, is far more powerful than Hamas and believed to have a vast arsenal of rockets and missiles capable of striking anywhere in Israel.
Kassem said he doesn't believe that Israel has the ability or has made a decision to launch a war at present.
Hezbollah has allies in the Iran-backed so-called “axis of resistance” in the region.
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sure
Your days a number
9-11 Israel was behind not Lebanon
So are Netanyahu' s days .
😢😢😢 be safe❤
Lol
Funny