The Lebanese Prime Minister, Nawaf Salam, delivering a speech from the Grand Serail, April 2, 2026. (Credit: X / @grandserail)
BEIRUT — One month after the resumption of open war between Hezbollah and the Israeli army, amid a wider regional conflict, Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said the authorities are “intensifying” their political and diplomatic efforts to bring an end to the hostilities, while criticizing attacks launched by Hezbollah “in coordination” with the Iranian regime and warning against internal divisions.
“A month has passed since a devastating war, against which we had warned and whose outbreak most Lebanese feared, believing it had been imposed on our country,” Mr. Salam said in a speech at the end of a Cabinet meeting.
The Lebanon front opened after Hezbollah fired rockets toward Israel on March 2, three days after the conflict began between Iran on one side and the United States and Israel on the other. Since then, the government has made any military action by the Shiite movement illegal, while it continues its daily attacks against Israel from positions in southern Lebanon.
These attacks are sometimes claimed as being carried out “jointly and simultaneously with the Revolutionary Guard,” which, according to the prime minister, “further entangles the conflict on our soil with the wars of others, in which we have no national interest.”
The Cabinet has also taken measures against the Revolutionary Guard and Iranian diplomats in Lebanon. The ultimatum issued to Iranian ambassador Mohammad Ali Reza Chibani, who was supposed to leave the country on March 29, went unheeded.
Tribute to residents of southern villages
Salam also reaffirmed the authorities' desire "to spare Lebanon further tragedies and losses resulting from violations of its sovereignty, its cities and its villages." Referring to statements by Israeli officials in recent days, he said they reveal Israeli intentions for a "significant expansion of the occupation of Lebanese territories."
"Lebanon has become the victim of a war whose outcome or end no one can foresee. This compels us to intensify our political and diplomatic efforts to put an end to the ongoing violations of our sovereignty and the integrity of our territory, and to condemn the flagrant breaches of international law and international humanitarian law," he stressed.
In addition to its invasion of the South, the Israeli army regularly carries out strikes on civilian infrastructure and indiscriminately bombs rescue workers, ambulances and even journalists. The prime minister also paid tribute to those on the front lines of these attacks and the fighting in the South, the residents "who are holding on" in their villages. "We are all by their side and will spare no effort to guarantee them the means to be resilient," he said, two days after the Lebanese army announced a "redeployment" and thus the withdrawal of most of its forces from a series of still-inhabited villages, including Rmeish, Ain Ibl and Dibil, which have been cut off from the rest of the country.
Warning against internal divisions
Referring also to the reception of more than a million people displaced from areas bombed and threatened by Israel, the Prime Minister said that the authorities are also continuing their efforts to "obtain increased support" to meet "their needs, even their protection, as well as that of their hosts across all regions of Lebanon." The displacement of nearly one-fifth of the country's population has created, in recent weeks, tensions between different communities, prompting Salam to call for "the spirit of national solidarity and human fraternity to prevail over any feelings of mistrust or discontent." In this context, he warned against "the risks of internal division," which he said can be avoided by rejecting "logic based on accusations, revenge, and rhetoric of fear and hatred."
