Hezbollah leader says Lebanese efforts to disarm group 'not in country's interest'

Naim Qassem says government’s disarmament plan is ‘what Israel wants,’ claims Beirut need not make good on ceasefire provisions until IDF halts actions against terror group

Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem on Sunday called the Lebanese government’s plan to disarm the Iran-backed group an “Israeli-American plan” that is not in the country’s “best interest.”

Qassem’s comments came as Beirut has sharpened its tone against the terror group under heavy US pressure to disarm Hezbollah south of the Litani River — located about 30 kilometers (19 miles) from the border with Israel — by the end of the year.

“Disarmament is an Israeli-American plan,” Qassem said, in an address broadcast on Lebanese television.

“To demand exclusive arms control while Israel is committing aggression and America is imposing its will on Lebanon, stripping it of its power, means that you are not working in Lebanon’s interest, but rather in the interest of what Israel wants,” he said.

“The deployment of the Lebanese army south of the Litani River was required only if Israel had adhered to its commitments… to halting the aggression, withdrawing, releasing prisoners, and having reconstruction commence,” Qassem said in his televised address.

“With the Israeli enemy not implementing any of the steps of the agreement… Lebanon is no longer required to take any action on any level before the Israelis commit to what they are obligated to do,” he added.

Supporters of the Hezbollah terror group wave Hezbollah and Palestinian flags as they attend a ceremony marking the first anniversary of Israel’s assassination of their longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut’s southern suburbs on September 27, 2025. (Anwar AMRO / AFP)

A year of intense conflict between the Lebanese Iran-backed terror group and Israel came to a halt just over a year ago with a US-brokered ceasefire. Under the terms of the truce, Hezbollah was to be disarmed and allow the Lebanese Armed Forces to deploy fully across the country as the IDF withdrew.

According to the agreement, Hezbollah was required to pull its forces north of the Litani River and have its military infrastructure in the vacated area dismantled.

Israel has retained troops in Lebanon at five strategic points near the border, and regularly conducts strikes that it says are against Hezbollah attempts to rearm and rebuild its strength.

Jerusalem has questioned the Lebanese military’s effectiveness in disarming Hezbollah and has threatened to intensify military action.

Illustrative: Smoke rises from the site of a series of Israeli airstrikes that targeted the outskirts of the southern Lebanese village of al-Katrani on December 18, 2025. (Rabih DAHER / AFP)

Lebanese army chief Rudolph Haykal told a military meeting on Tuesday that “the army is in the process of finishing the first phase of its plan,” and is carefully planning “for the subsequent phases” of disarmament.

Last week, Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun said that “diplomatic contacts” with Jerusalem were pushing back the “specter of war” between Hezbollah and Israel.

“I tell you that the specter of war has been pushed away from Lebanon, and matters will head in a positive direction, God willing,” he said, jabbing Hezbollah in his call that Lebanon be a “state of institutions, not a state of parties and sects.”

A day earlier, Lebanon’s Foreign Minister Youssef Rajji demanded that Hezbollah’s entire military system be dismantled and disarmed, in comments that were explicitly critical of both the terror group and its main backer, Iran.