US-brokered peace agreement with Israel ‘will not be implemented’ after Hezbollah rips up ‘humiliating’ deal: Lebanon
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Lebanon vowed Monday that the US-brokered peace agreement with Israel “will not be implemented” — just days after Hezbollah ripped up the deal, declaring it “null and void” as well as “humiliating.
Nabih Berri, the country’s parliament speaker and an ally of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terror group, delivered the stinging rebuke about the deal just three days after it was signed in Washington, DC.
He said the US-brokered framework — which allows for the Israel Defense Forces to maintain a security zone in southern Lebanon until Hezbollah is removed from the area — is “10 times worse” than the May 17, 1983, agreement, the closest Beirut and Jerusalem have come to a peace arrangement.
Berri, 88, said, “This agreement will not be adopted and it will not be implemented in its current form” and labeled the deal an “agreement of dictates,” Israeli news outlet I24 News reported.
He claimed the deal doesn’t guarantee Lebanon’s rights.
The Hezbollah ally said he was counting on the “US-Iranian negotiating track” as the only framework capable of compelling the Jewish state to fulfil its “obligations” toward Lebanon.
A senior Israeli official told the Jewish News Syndicate on Sunday that one achievement of US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s framework agreement with Lebanon is that it “trumps” the memorandum of understanding with Iran reached through Pakistani mediation earlier this month.
That agreement had called for an “immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon,” even before Hezbollah’s disarmament.
Berri’s rebuke came after Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem branded the deal a “grave blunder.”
“The framework agreement in Washington is humiliating, shameful, and a surrender of sovereignty,” he said Saturday.
“Linking the Israeli withdrawal to the disarmament of the resistance throughout Lebanon is a very dangerous proposition that crosses all red lines.”
Qassem called for the deal to be replaced with the memorandum of understanding reached between Iran and the US — which calls for the “immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon.”
Hezbollah would continue to fight Israel and not disarm, he vowed.
“We did not leave the battlefield in the most difficult circumstances, and we will not leave it,” Qassem said.
Meanwhile, Rubio championed the agreement, saying “it marks another major milestone in President Trump’s effort to bring lasting peace and stability” to the Middle East.
“This agreement establishes a clear and structured process to restore Lebanon’s sovereignty, disarm Hezbollah, and dismantle its terrorist infrastructure, and enable Israel to return to its borders once that threat to its citizens is removed.”
The US will also commit $100 million in humanitarian assistance in coordination with the United Nations.