Hezbollah has denounced Lebanese President Joseph Aoun’s recent trip to Washington as a failure, accusing the government of bowing to foreign influence at a critical moment for the country.
In a statement, the Iran-backed group said the visit exposed “the extent of subservience and submission to foreign tutelage”. It argued that Aoun had “failed to achieve… an American commitment to the withdrawal of the enemy from our land”, a reference to Israel.
Hezbollah also said the talks did not “stop the crimes of killing, bombing and bulldozing that this enemy continues to commit against our people, nor did it provide the possibility of a safe return for the displaced or the start of reconstruction”.
US President Donald Trump welcomed Aoun to Washington on Tuesday. Following the meeting, the Lebanese president said he had “stressed the urgent need for a full Israeli withdrawal from Lebanese territory”.
Hezbollah pulled Lebanon into the wider Middle East war when it attacked Israel in support of Tehran on 2 March, prompting major Israeli airstrikes and a ground invasion.
US President Donald Trump alongside Lebanese President Joseph Aoun earlier this week
Hezbollah’s leadership renewed its opposition to Beirut’s direct negotiations with Israel, which opened in April, as well as to the US-sponsored framework agreement Lebanon and Israel signed last month.
The group also repeated its demand for Israeli forces to withdraw completely from southern Lebanon.
Lebanon’s army began moving into Zawtar al-Gharbiya on Tuesday under the terms of that agreement.
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The deal requires the army to disarm Hezbollah, while the Israeli military must pull back from designated “pilot zones” before Lebanese troops take up positions there.
Army chief Rodolphe Haykal travelled to Zawtar al-Gharbiya and “reviewed the measures taken” to “ensure the safe return of the residents”. His visit came a day after Prime Minister Nawaf Salam planted the Lebanese flag in the town.
An AFP photographer witnessed rescue workers entering the town, which remains closed to residents displaced by the fighting.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported that paramedics had retrieved the bodies of three people killed there during the war.
Violence has eased since last month’s signing of a US-Iran memorandum and the Lebanon-Israel framework deal, but Israel continues to launch sporadic attacks in the south.
According to the NNA, Israeli forces conducted a “large detonation” in the border-area town of Al-Tiri. The agency also said a Syrian worker was wounded by Israeli gunfire elsewhere in southern Lebanon.
Meanwhile, the Hezbollah-linked Islamic Health Committee said an Israeli strike in Nabatieh al-Fawqa wounded two rescuers and damaged an ambulance while the team was examining the scene of an earlier attack.
