Lebanon’s cabinet has again met to discuss the disarmament of Hezbollah despite the latter’s earlier rejection of the demands, which have largely been driven by the United States.
As ministers gathered for more talks on Thursday, two days after they announced they were planning to restrict arms to six official forces by the end of the year, Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc accused the government of “slipping into accepting American demands” that would serve Israel’s interests.
Hezbollah ministers and Muslim Shia allies in the Lebanese cabinet withdrew from the cabinet meeting on Thursday in protest during discussions about the proposal to disarm Hezbollah, three Lebanese political sources told Reuters.
Beirut’s clampdown on Hezbollah comes after prodding from US envoy Tom Barrack, who presented the government with detailed proposals featuring a timetable for disarming the group, even as Israel continued to violate a November truce it signed with Lebanon to end more than a year of hostilities that culminated last year in two months of full-blown war.
The phased proposals aim to “extend and stabilise” the ceasefire, requiring the government to remove Hezbollah’s arsenal under “a detailed [Lebanese army] deployment plan”, and calling on Israel to cease attacks and withdraw from the five positions it continued to hold in south Lebanon after the ceasefire deal was struck, according to a copy of a Lebanese cabinet agenda seen by the news agency Reuters.
Under the truce, Israel was meant to completely withdraw from Lebanon. Hezbollah, meanwhile, was to pull its fighters north of the Litani River, around 30 kilometres (20 miles) north of the border with Israel, to be replaced by the expanded deployment of the Lebanese army and United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL).
After Tuesday’s cabinet meeting, Hezbollah said on Wednesday that it would treat the government’s decision to disarm it “as if it did not exist”, accusing the cabinet of committing a “grave sin”.
Citing “political sources”, pro-Hezbollah newspaper Al Akhbar said the group and its ally the Amal movement could choose to withdraw their four ministers from the government or trigger a no-confidence vote by parliament’s Shiite bloc, which comprises 27 of Lebanon’s 128 lawmakers.
Israel, which routinely carries out air strikes in Lebanon despite the November ceasefire, has already signalled it would not hesitate to launch destructive military operations if Beirut failed to disarm the group.
Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon killed two people on Wednesday, according to the Ministry of Public Health. On Thursday, an Israeli drone strike on a vehicle killed five people and injured 10.
The government’s decision is unprecedented since the end of Lebanon’s civil war more than three decades ago, when the country’s armed factions – with the exception of Hezbollah – agreed to surrender their weapons.
