Lebanon's Foreign Minister Youssef Raggi has claimed Israel has the right to continue its attacks on Lebanon while Hezbollah retains its weapons.
Mr Raggi, a vocal supporter of disarming Hezbollah, told Sky News Arabia, “as long as the weapons are not totally monopolised by the state, Israel will unfortunately retain the right to continue its attacks in accordance with this agreement”.
The fragile ceasefire agreement ended more than a year of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in late 2024.
According to the truce deal, Hezbollah should be disarmed and its infrastructure confiscated south of the Litani River, a process which the Lebanese army says it completed in co-ordination with Unifil last week. The truce also stipulates that Israel should withdraw from the five points of Lebanese territory it occupies and cease its daily bombing − which it has failed to do.
Israel regularly claims, without providing evidence, that Hezbollah is rebuilding. Unifil, the UN peacekeeping mission in south Lebanon, says it has seen no evidence that Hezbollah is rebuilding south of the Litani.
Mr Raggi's remarks are the first such comments by a member of the current Lebanese government.
Israel's official account in Arabic on X posted the interview, claiming that the Lebanese government has “accepted the Israeli conditions”.
Israeli forces have been accused of violating the ceasefire thousands of times − including through drones, the expansion of occupying bases, ground raids on south Lebanon and attacks on Unifil forces and the Lebanese army.
The UN says more than 100 Lebanese civilians have been killed in south Lebanon since the ceasefire.
Under the terms of the ceasefire deal, Israel should inform the US-led mechanism monitoring committee of any breach and cannot act alone before informing the committee, unless there is an imminent risk to its security.
Lebanese security officials previously told The National that Israel regularly bypasses the committee to carry out attacks. Often, when the Lebanese military visits the strike location after it is attacked, there is no evidence of Hezbollah infrastructure, they said.
Mr Raggi also said Hezbollah's weapons had become “a burden on the Shiite community”.
“The state seeks to monopolise weapons for the good of the Lebanese people and to restore its sovereignty over its entire territory, because everything depends on it: aid, economic recovery, reconstruction and investments,” he told Sky News Arabia.
Hezbollah and Iran have repeatedly criticised the Lebanese government's move to disarm the group. Hezbollah has allowed the disarmament push to take place south of the Litani, but has pushed back on any action further north.
The Lebanese military will next month lay out its plans over how it seeks to disarm Hezbollah north of the Litani, but has warned that this will be far more sensitive because of Hezbollah's opposition.
