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BEIRUT: Lebanon’s cabinet is set to meet again on Thursday to discuss the thorny task of disarming Hezbollah, a day after the Iran-backed group rejected the government’s decision to take away its weapons.
With Washington pressing Lebanon to take action on the matter, US envoy Tom Barrack has made several visits to Beirut in recent weeks, presenting officials with a proposal that includes a timetable for Hezbollah’s disarmament.
Amid the US pressure and fears Israel could expand its strikes in Lebanon, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said Tuesday that the government had tasked the army with developing a plan to restrict weapons to government forces by the end of 2025.
The decision is unprecedented since the end of Lebanon’s civil war more than three decades ago, when the country’s armed factions — with the exception of Hezbollah — agreed to surrender their weapons.
The government said the new disarmament push was part of implementing a November ceasefire that sought to end more than a year of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah.
That conflict culminated last year in two months of full-blown war that left the group badly weakened, both politically and militarily.
Hezbollah said on Wednesday that it would treat the government’s decision to disarm it “as if it did not exist,” accusing the cabinet of committing a “grave sin.”
It added that the move “undermines Lebanon’s sovereignty and gives Israel a free hand to tamper with its security, geography, politics and future existence.”
The Amal movement, Hezbollah’s main ally headed by parliament speaker Nabih Berri, also criticized the move and called Thursday’s cabinet meeting “an opportunity for correction.”
Iran, Hezbollah’s military and financial backer, said on Wednesday that any decision on disarmament “will ultimately rest with Hezbollah itself.”
“We support it from afar, but we do not intervene in its decisions,” Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi added, saying the group had “rebuilt itself” after the war with Israel.
Two ministers affiliated with Hezbollah and the Amal movement walked out of Tuesday’s meeting on disarmament in protest.
Hezbollah described the walkout as a rejection of the government’s “decision to subject Lebanon to American tutelage and Israeli occupation.”
Citing “political sources” with knowledge of the matter, pro-Hezbollah newspaper Al Akhbar said the group and its Amal allies could choose to withdraw their four ministers from the government or trigger a no-confidence vote in parliament by the Shiite bloc, which comprises 27 of Lebanon’s 128 lawmakers.
Israel — which routinely carries out air strikes in Lebanon despite the ceasefire, saying it is targeting Hezbollah fighters and infrastructure — has already signalled it would not hesitate to launch destructive military operations if Beirut failed to disarm the group.
Israeli strikes in south Lebanon killed two people on Wednesday, according to the Lebanese health ministry.