Hezbollah official rules out talk of arms handover until Israel withdraws

A Hezbollah official said Friday that the Iran-backed movement categorically refused to discuss handing over its weapons to Lebanon's army unless Israel withdrew completely from the south and stopped its "aggression".

A ceasefire agreement in November ended more than a year of hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel sparked by the Gaza war, including two months of open warfare that decimated the group's leadership.

"It is not a question of disarming," Wafic Safa said in an interview with Hezbollah's Al-Nur radio station.

"What the president (Joseph Aoun) said in his inauguration speech is a defensive strategy."

Safa, said by experts to belong to the movement's most radical faction, said Hezbollah had conveyed its position to Aoun, who on Tuesday said he sought "to make 2025 the year of restricting arms to the state" alone.

In his interview, Safa asked: "Wouldn't it be logical for Israel to first withdraw, then release the prisoners, then cease its aggression... and then we discuss a defensive strategy?"

"The defensive strategy is about thinking about how to protect Lebanon, not preparing for the party to hand over its weapons."

Analysts have said that the once unthinkable idea of Hezbollah disarming may no longer be so, and may even be inevitable.

Under the November ceasefire, Israel was to withdraw all of its forces from south Lebanon.

But despite the deal, Israeli troops have remained at five south Lebanon positions that they deem "strategic".

Israel has also continued to carry out near-daily strikes against Lebanon -- including on Friday -- saying it is targeting members of Hezbollah.

Under the truce, Hezbollah was to pull its fighters back north of Lebanon's Litani River and dismantle any remaining military infrastructure in the south.

Lebanon's army has been deploying in the south near the border after Israeli forces pulled back.

Hezbollah says the ceasefire does not apply to the rest of Lebanon, despite being based on UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which calls for the disarmament of non-state groups.

Hezbollah was the only group to keep its weapons after Lebanon's 15-year civil war ending in 1990, saying that they were for "resistance" against Israel.

US special envoy for the Middle East Morgan Ortagus, who visited Beirut this month, said Washington continued to press Lebanon's government "to fully fulfil the cessation of hostilities, and that includes disarming Hezbollah and all militias".

Safa said on Friday that both Hezbollah and the Lebanese army were respecting the terms of the truce.

"The problem is Israel, which has not done so," he said.

On Saturday, a source close to Hezbollah told AFP that the group had ceded to the Lebanese army around 190 of its 265 military positions identified south of the Litani.