Hezbollah chief defies disarmament demands as Israel signals readiness to act

“We will not lay down our weapons to serve Israel’s goals even if the entire world unites in war against Lebanon.”

By World Israel News Staff

Hezbollah Secretary-General Sheikh Naim Qassem delivered a defiant and uncompromising speech on Saturday, flatly rejecting any possibility that the Iran-backed terrorist organization would disarm, even under mounting international pressure and the threat of Israeli military action.

Addressing the future of Hezbollah’s weapons, Qassem declared that the group’s arsenal is a red line and inseparable from its very existence. “We will not lay down our weapons to serve Israel’s goals, even if the entire world unites in war against Lebanon,” he said, according to reports in the Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar.

In a televised address, Qassem framed the group’s weapons as sacred and untouchable. “Land, arms, and the national spirit form a single, indivisible equation,” he said. “Any attempt to remove or even touch one is an assault on all three. That would amount to the erasure of our existence, and we will not permit it.”

Qassem claimed that Israel’s strategy following the killing of longtime Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and other senior commanders was to dismantle the organization entirely. He asserted that Hezbollah thwarted that effort, saying the group “fought a war against Israel and prevented it from achieving that goal.”

He further argued that Israel now privately acknowledges that its wartime gains are eroding. “This is natural,” Qassem said, “because Israel failed to realize its objectives, while Hezbollah continues to exist.”

Casting Israel’s postwar actions as ongoing hostility, Qassem warned: “We view everything that Israel is doing after the agreement as a continuation of aggression, which endangers Lebanon as a whole.”

While expressing nominal openness to coordination with the Lebanese Armed Forces, Qassem drew firm boundaries around any future arrangement. “The resistance is ready for maximum cooperation with the Lebanese army,” he said, “but it is not ready for any framework that leads to surrender to the Israeli entity and the American tyrant.”

He dismissed calls for the Lebanese state to hold a monopoly on weapons as an “American-Israeli demand” that would bring about Lebanon’s collapse. “With surrender, there will be no Lebanon,” Qassem declared.

Qassem also lashed out at what he described as efforts to weaken Hezbollah while leaving the Lebanese army underarmed. “The project is extremely dangerous,” he said. “They want to weaken the resistance while leaving the army with only symbolic strength, rendering Lebanon powerless.”

Criticizing ongoing diplomatic efforts, Qassem questioned their value amid continued violence. “Have you not heard the U.S. ambassador say that talks are one matter and ongoing aggression is another?” he asked. “Negotiations are independent, which means aggression continues. What then is the purpose of these talks?”

Qassem’s remarks come as pressure on Hezbollah intensifies. In recent weeks, the Israel Defense Forces have reportedly finalized plans for a large-scale strike on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon if the Lebanese government fails to disarm the group by a year-end deadline, according to Israel’s public broadcaster Kan News.

Israel has also warned the United States that if Hezbollah is not fully disarmed, it will act independently, cautioning that the consequences for the terrorist organization could be severe.

Israeli strikes in recent weeks have increasingly targeted Hezbollah’s infrastructure, particularly south of the Litani River, an area long used by the group to stage attacks against the Jewish state.

On Saturday evening, Israel briefly demonstrated both its readiness to act and its expectations of Lebanese responsibility. The IDF halted a planned strike against Hezbollah operatives in the southern Lebanese village of Yanua after the Lebanese army moved swiftly to intervene.

The IDF had issued a public warning earlier in the day, a step that typically precedes an airstrike, but later announced it was monitoring whether Lebanese forces would fully neutralize the Hezbollah presence.

Qassem’s speech made clear that Hezbollah has no intention of meeting international demands to disarm, setting the stage for a potentially decisive confrontation as Israel’s deadline approaches.