Key facts
- Senior Hezbollah official Nawaf Moussawi believes force is essential to liberate South Lebanon.
- Moussawi stated that negotiations with Israel alone are insufficient for withdrawal.
- He criticized the Lebanese state's current negotiations for lacking leverage and national consensus.
- Hezbollah launched cross-border strikes on October 7, 2023, as a support front for Palestinian resistance.
- Moussawi blamed the occupation, not resistance groups, for ongoing conflict.
Senior Hezbollah official Nawaf Moussawi asserted that military force is the only way to compel Israel to withdraw from South Lebanon, stating that negotiations alone have proven fruitless. In an interview with Middle East Eye, Moussawi, who heads Hezbollah’s border and resources department, argued that Lebanese-Israeli negotiations lack leverage and national unity, criticizing President Joseph Aoun's approach.
Moussawi insisted that the occupation, not the resistance, is the core problem, drawing parallels to the situation in Palestine. He highlighted Hezbollah's role in launching cross-border strikes on October 7, 2023, as a support front for Palestinian resistance. He also mentioned a second conflict initiated in March, sparked by the "US-Israeli war on Iran and the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei."
He stated that Hezbollah's method for returning displaced people to the south involves liberating their land through fighting the Israeli occupier, citing the 2000 withdrawal as a precedent. Moussawi suggested that President Aoun could have achieved better results by collaborating with Hezbollah's armed resistance rather than confronting it. He noted that despite concessions, the Lebanese authorities have not achieved significant results from their negotiations with Israel, particularly concerning the withdrawal of Israeli troops from occupied Lebanese territory and the return of displaced residents.