Qassem: Arms monopoly used to divide Amal-Hezbollah alliance

Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem said Sunday that Israel and the United States are using the question of his party's disarmament, as well as their domestic political allies, to weaken Lebanon and stoke divisions between the party and its ally, the Amal Movement.

"Disarmament is part of a broader project: to remove military strength; weaken economic and social strength; provoke divisions between the Amal Movement and Hezbollah; stoke discord between the army, the resistance, and the people; maintain the occupation in southern Lebanon; enable attacks on all of Lebanon without oversight or accountability," the party's secretary-general began.

He later returned in his remarks to the issue of the Amal-Hezbollah alliance: "They tried to sow discord between the Amal Movement and Hezbollah. But today, their bond is strong, their relationship solid, and their land is one."

Qassem was speaking at the first commemoration of the death following a long illness of Mohammad Hassan Yaghi, known as "Abu Salim," one of Hezbollah's founders in 1982.

Yaghi served in Parliament and was the executive assistant of former Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, who Israel killed on Sept. 27, 2024.

Some nuances

This speech comes two weeks after Israeli strikes, for the first time, targeted a member of the movement led by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri in southern Lebanon.

Since then, some nuances have suggested that the tandem is no longer on the same page regarding the state's monopoly on weapons, notably due to growing pressure from Israel for the complete disarmament of Hezbollah, even north of the Litani River.

On the issue of his party's disarmament, the Hezbollah secretary-general argued that the group had already done enough by abandoning its positions south of the Litani, while the Israeli state had not fulfilled any of its own commitments under the truce.

"Israel must first uphold all its commitments, and only then can it demand further actions ... It has never been asked of the Lebanese state to police in service of Israel ... Israel must halt its aggressions — by land, sea, and air — as well as its espionage activities, cease all forms of hostility, withdraw completely, release all prisoners, and allow reconstruction to begin, starting with the South ... That is the implementation of the agreement. Only then can you come ask us to discuss the next phases," he added.

The Lebanese Army is expected to have completed Hezbollah's disarmament south of the Litani River by the end of 2025, which is Wednesday, according to the plan the army presented to the government on Sept. 5.

The military "is planning" to move to "the next phases" of disarmament in the rest of Lebanon, notably under Israeli and American pressure.

Qassem also accused Israel and the United States of destabilizing Lebanon since 2019, the year the country plunged into a severe financial crisis from which it has yet to recover, worsened by COVID-19, the Beirut Port explosion, and the ongoing war between the party and Israel.

"Lebanon is today at the heart of the storm and instability, and the reason is American hegemony as well as the Israeli enemy," he continued.

He also argued that restoring the state's monopoly over weapons is an "Israeli-American project."

"We are at a historic crossroads: Either we give Israel and the United States what they want," which according to him is "American tutelage over Lebanon," "or we build our own nation."

New army inspections

The situation on the ground in southern Lebanon has remained relatively calm since Friday, as bad weather has set in over recent days.

On Sunday, the Lebanese Army again conducted inspections of several houses in southern Lebanon at the request of the cease-fire monitoring committee.

The troops inspected seven homes in the locality of Bint Jbeil (in the district of the same name), five of which had been damaged by Israeli shelling during the war against Hezbollah between October 2023 and November 2024, as well as six houses in Ainata, near Bint Jbeil, our correspondent in southern Lebanon reports. Most of the homes checked in Bint Jbeil had already been searched previously.

Meanwhile, the Israeli army fired shots in the direction of a group of shepherds in the al-Amra area, near the locality of Wazzani in the Marjayoun district, while a drone dropped a stun grenade nearby, forcing them to retreat to a safe area, according to our correspondent.

For his part, Amal Movement MP Qassem Hashem accused Israel of seeking to turn southern Lebanon into "a buffer zone devoid of population" and declared that the "daily Israeli aggressions in the region require the monitoring commission to face up to its responsibilities, when it mobilizes at the slightest Israeli pretext or allegation," according to the state-run National News Agency. He also called on the state to stop "turning a blind eye to the South."

These nuances pertain in particular to direct negotiations with Israel within the framework of the cease-fire monitoring committee, known as the "Mechanism." Unlike Hezbollah, the head of Amal and Speaker of Parliament, Nabih Berri, showed himself open to the idea of introducing a Lebanese civilian figure to the meetings of the "Mechanism" from early November, which ultimately resulted in the appointment of former ambassador Simon Karam in early December.