Hezbollah Warns Lebanon There Will Be No Life If The Country Against It

Hezbollah Leader Naim Qassem/PHOTO via Wikimedia Commons

JAKARTA - Hezbollah spoke of the threat of civil war by warning "there will be no life" in Lebanon if the government tries to confront or eliminate the Iran-backed group.

The government wants to control weaponry in line with US-backed plans following Israel's military operation against Hezbollah, which was founded four decades ago with the support of the Tehran Revolutionary Guard.

But the group resisted pressure to strip off weapons, saying it could not have happened until Israel ended its attack and occupation on the southern route of Lebanon that had been Hezbollah's stronghold.

"This is our nation together. We live with dignity together, and we build its sovereignty together - or Lebanon will be destroyed if you stand on the other side and try to fight and eliminate us," said Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem, in a televised address. reported by Reuters, Friday, August 15.

Israel has dealt a crushing blow to Hezbollah in the past two years, killing many of its top brass, including former leader Hassan Nasrallah, and 5,000 of its fighters, as well as destroying most of its weapons.

Lebanese Prime Minister, Nawaf Salam, said Qassem's statement implicitly contained the threat of civil war, calling it "unacceptable".

"No party in Lebanon is allowed to own weapons outside the framework of the Lebanese state," Salam said in a post on X containing his statement from an interview with the Pan-Arab newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat.

The Lebanese cabinet last week assigned troops to limit weapons to only state security forces, an act that angered Hezbollah.