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Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem on Thursday rejected the ceasefire agreement reached between Israel and Lebanon, calling the Lebanese government's direct negotiations with Israel "shameless" and warning that northern Israel "will not be safe" as long as Lebanese villages are bombed and people are killed.
In a written statement read on Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV, Qassem said the agreement's demand that Hezbollah fighters leave southern Lebanon under fire would mean "surrender, defeat and achieving the enemy's goals."
He described the deal as a "roadmap to annihilate part of the Lebanese people" and called on Lebanese authorities to abandon what he termed "the farce and humiliation called direct talks" with Israel.
"What we are concerned about is an end to the aggression, ceasefire and Israel's withdrawal," Qassem said. "We did not make any commitment to any party to stop resisting as long as there is occupation."
Qassem outlined the group's conditions for any acceptable agreement: a comprehensive ceasefire covering all of Lebanon, a full Israeli withdrawal from the south, and no link between Hezbollah's presence and a ceasefire or Israeli withdrawal.
He rejected any attempt to tie the group's redeployment to wider political arrangements, saying the group refuses conditions that make its military posture a precondition for peace.
"The ceasefire must be comprehensive ... without the Israeli enemy having the freedom to kill," Qassem said in his televised address.
He also framed the group's continued resistance in ideological terms.
"We fight for our land and our people rooted in our obedience to our Lord, so that we shall not be slaves to anyone, and so that our generations may live their lives independently in their homeland alongside their fellow countrymen," Qassem said, according to a Hezbollah statement.
Qassem directly linked Hezbollah's military posture toward Israel to conditions in Lebanon, warning that northern Israeli communities would remain under threat as long as Lebanese villages face bombardment.
"As long as our villages are unsafe, being bombed, destroyed and our people killed, the settlements are unsafe," he said, referring to northern Israeli communities.
The statement followed hours after Lebanese President Joseph Aoun noted that ceasefire implementation could begin within 24 hours of final approval by all parties. It also came a day after Israel and Lebanon announced a renewed agreement following U.S.-mediated talks at the State Department.
The U.S.-sponsored talks followed weeks of near-daily Israeli strikes on Lebanon that have killed more than 3,500 people since March 2, despite a ceasefire that took effect on April 17 and was later extended until early July.
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