US envoy arrives in Beirut for talks on Hezbollah disarmament

US envoy Thomas Barrack is meeting Lebanese officials in Beirut to discuss a proposed plan to disarm Hezbollah, hours after Israel launched new airstrikes on the terror group.

The Israeli strikes were seen by Lebanese officials and diplomats as an attempt to ratchet up pressure on Hezbollah, whose leader Naim Qassem said in a televised speech yesterday that the group still needed missiles to defend Lebanon from Israel.

Israel has regularly carried out drone strikes in Lebanon it says are aimed at operatives belonging to the Iran-backed group, despite a ceasefire in November that followed over a year of conflict, and two months of open war, sparked by daily Hezbollah rocket, missile and drone attacks on northern Israel starting on October 8, 2023.

The terror group has been under pressure in recent months both within Lebanon and from Washington to completely relinquish its weapons. It is weighing shrinking its arsenal, sources told Reuters last week, without disarming in full.

Barrack’s proposal, delivered to Lebanese officials during his last visit on June 19, would see Hezbollah fully disarmed within four months in exchange for the withdrawal of Israeli troops occupying several posts in south Lebanon and a halt to Israeli airstrikes.

Lebanon formed a committee to draft a response. Hezbollah was expected to provide its own feedback to its ally, Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri, to incorporate into a counter-proposal being prepared for Barrack’s visit today.

The group did not make its response public, but two sources familiar with its deliberations said Hezbollah had told Berri it would not discuss giving up any more arms before Israeli troops fully left Lebanon and without guarantees Israel would stop targeting group members.