BEIRUT (Reuters) – Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem pledged on Friday to work closely with the Lebanese army to implement a ceasefire agreement with Israel, which he said his group had agreed to “with their heads held high.”
It was his first speech since a ceasefire got here into force on Wednesday after greater than a 12 months of hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel that decimated swaths of Lebanon and killed 4,000 people, including a whole bunch of girls and kids.
Qassem said Hezbollah “approved this agreement, amid strong resistance on the battlefield and with our heads held high, fighting for our right to defend (ourselves).”
The ceasefire stipulates that Hezbollah will withdraw from areas south of the Litani River, which runs about 30 km (20 miles) north of the border with Israel, and that the Lebanese army will deploy troops there as Israeli ground troops withdraw.
“There will be high-level coordination between the resistance movement (Hezbollah) and the Lebanese army to fulfill the obligations under the agreement,” Qassem said.
The Lebanese army has already sent additional troops to the south, but is preparing a detailed deployment plan to share with the Lebanese government, security sources and officials said.
These efforts are complicated by the continued presence of Israeli troops on Lebanese territory. The contract gives them a full 60 days to complete the payment.
The Israeli military has imposed restrictions on people returning to villages along Lebanon’s border with Israel and in recent days has shot at residents of those villages, calling the moves a violation of the truce.
Both the Lebanese army and Hezbollah have accused Israel of violating the ceasefire in these cases and carrying out an airstrike on the Litani River on Thursday.
Qassem said the group had achieved a “divine victory” over Israel, even greater than that declared after the two enemies last fought in 2006.
“To those who assumed that Hezbollah would be weakened, we are sorry, your bets have failed,” he said.
