The secretary general of Lebanese Hezbollah, Naïm Qassem, affirmed this Saturday, January 4 that his movement was ready to respond to “violations” of the ceasefire by Israel, more than a month after the entry into force of the agreement fragile truce.
The agreement entered into force on November 27, two months after the start of an open war between Israel and the armed movement Hezbollah, which emerged considerably weakened from the conflict, its leadership largely decimated.
Under the text, the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers must deploy in southern Lebanon and the Israeli army must withdraw within 60 days. It also provides for the withdrawal of Hezbollah up to approximately 30 km from the Israeli border in southern Lebanon. Since the start of the ceasefire, the two camps have accused each other of repeated violations.
Nasrallah's successor
“We said that we will be patient and give a chance for the Israeli violations to stop and to implement the agreement. But that does not mean that we will be patient for sixty days,” he said in reference to the duration of the agreement.
“We can lose patience before the sixty days and we can be patient until” the agreement expires, added Naïm Qassem in a pre-recorded speech broadcast via Hezbollah's Telegram channel. “This will be decided by the leadership of the movement.”
The whereabouts of Naïm Qassem, who succeeded Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli strike at the end of September in the southern suburbs of Beirut, are unknown. For its part, the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) accused the Israeli army of having “deliberately destroyed a barrel on the blue line”, the demarcation line set by the UN between Israel and Lebanon , at the locality of Labbouné, and an “observation tower of the Lebanese army” near an area where UNIFIL is present.
Original article published on BFMTV.com
