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Hezbollah said Wednesday that the Lebanese government’s decision to hold direct talks with Israel was “a national sin” that would deepen divisions in Lebanon, as a senior lawmaker from the Iran-backed group also called for a public referendum on Hezbollah’s weapons.
Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah said Tuesday’s U.S.-mediated meeting in Washington between Lebanon’s ambassador to the United States and her Israeli counterpart did not reflect Lebanon’s national identity or “the choices of its people.”
The talks, hosted by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, were the first direct contact in decades between Lebanon and Israel, two countries that have remained in a state of war since Israel was established in 1948.
Both sides described the meeting as positive, although Israel had ruled out any discussion of Lebanon’s demand for a ceasefire before the talks began.
Fadlallah strongly criticized the Lebanese government for taking part in the meeting and said the decision risked widening internal divisions.
“Does the government not realize the danger of what it has undertaken? And does it understand that it has entered a wrong path that leads only to increasing the rift among the Lebanese?” Fadlallah said in a televised statement.
He said the government had gained nothing from Israel except praise without securing any demands.
“It has obtained nothing from the enemy except praise without achieving any demand,” he said.
In separate remarks, Fadlallah also described the talks as “disgraceful” and said Lebanon was giving Israel a political platform while it was “killing Lebanese people and committing massacres.”
“The enemy is the one benefiting,” he said.
Fadlallah said that if the Lebanese government wanted to prove it reflected the aspirations of the Lebanese people, it should hold a popular referendum rather than negotiate with Israel over Hezbollah’s disarmament.
He said he expected such a vote to show that “a majority of the Lebanese people” support Hezbollah’s campaign against Israel.
The remarks came as the Lebanese state has been seeking to disarm Hezbollah peacefully since the 2024 war.
The current government banned Hezbollah’s military wing after the group opened fire on Israel last month.
Tuesday’s meeting took place at what was described as a critical juncture in the regional crisis, one week into a fragile ceasefire between the United States, Israel and Iran.
The broader conflict began with U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran on Feb. 28.
The war in Lebanon erupted on March 2, when Hezbollah opened fire in support of Tehran.
According to Lebanese authorities, Israel’s offensive in Lebanon has killed more than 2,000 people and forced 1.2 million people from their homes.
Fadlallah said Hezbollah wants a comprehensive ceasefire rather than a return to near-daily Israeli strikes and assassinations, as happened after the group agreed to a previous ceasefire with Israel in November 2024.
The issue of Hezbollah’s disarmament remains one of the most sensitive questions in Lebanon.
The Lebanese state has been seeking to disarm the group peacefully, but any attempt to do so by force risks triggering further conflict in a country still marked by the legacy of the 1975-1990 civil war.
Moves against Hezbollah by a Western-backed Lebanese government in 2008 prompted a short civil war.
Fadlallah’s comments underscored the depth of political polarization in Lebanon as the government engages in rare direct diplomacy with Israel while Hezbollah continues its war and rejects any negotiations over its arsenal.
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