Lebanese Christian opposition leader calls for disarming Hezbollah to prevent further escalation

In a tweet against the terror group Hezbollah, Lebanese opposition leader Samy Gemayel says that in order to avoid an escalation, Hezbollah must be disarmed and the Lebanese state must regain control of the country.

Gemayel calls for the application of Resolution 1559, a UN decision from 2004 urging the Lebanese government to establish its sovereignty over the entirety of its territory, and disarm militias like Hezbollah.

“Resolution 1559 stipulates that weapons are exclusively in the hands of the State,” Gemayel writes on X. The party he leads, Kataeb, also known as the Phalanges, is a Christian political formation that was founded by his grandfather Pierre Gemayel. It holds only four seats in the 128-seat Lebanese parliament.

“After the response and the response to the response and the response to the response to the response, it has become clear that neither side intends to expand the war, so it is necessary to immediately stop military operations on both sides and move towards a ceasefire… in order to avoid further senseless destruction and death” Gemayel writes, describing sarcastically the tit-for-that border skirmishes that Israel and Hezbollah have been engaged in over the past 10 months of war.

“No Lebanese person will believe deceitful speeches and claims of imaginary victories,” he adds, in a probable reference to an address by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah scheduled for later today.