Hezbollah leader urges Lebanon's government to cancel Israel talks as battle rages in strategic town
BEIRUT (AP) — Hezbollah's leader urged Lebanon on Monday to step down from scheduled direct talks with Israel set to take place in Washington, the first in decades.
Naim Kassem made the remarks in a televised address on the eve of the scheduled meeting between Lebanon and Israel's ambassadors to the U.S., as both sides set a framework for negotiations.
The latest round of fighting was sparked by Hezbollah firing rockets into northern Israel on March 2, after the U.S. and Israel attacked the militant group's patron, Iran.
At least 2,055 people have been killed in Israeli strikes in Lebanon, the Health Ministry said, among them 252 women, 165 children and 87 medical workers, while 6,588 others were wounded. More than 1 million people are displaced.
The Lebanese government, which says is committed to disarming Hezbollah, called for direct talks early on in the war, but to no avail. Last week, Israel announced their approval of talks, but both sides don't appear to be on the same page.
Lebanon hopes for a ceasefire as a prerequisite, similar to Iran and U.S. talks brokered by Pakistan. However, Israel has framed the talks as peace negotiations with Hezbollah's disarmament as a priority item, with no mention of a ceasefire or a withdrawal of its forces from southern Lebanon.
“We refuse negotiations with the Israeli entity. These negotiations are pointless,” Kassem said in a televised address, calling it a “free concession” to Israel and the United States. “The opportunity is still there. We call for a historic and heroic position to cancel these negotiations.”
Kassem called for a return to the ceasefire that halted the last Israel-Hezbollah war in 2024. Talks were done indirectly through a mechanism with the United States, France and the U.N. peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon mediating.
The Hezbollah leader slammed Lebanon's president, prime minister and Cabinet for criminalizing the group's military activities and their ongoing diplomatic approach with Israel, saying that "it did not take us any step forward." He also criticized the government for a decision to banish Iran's ambassador from the country and criminalize the Iranian Revolutionary Guard's presence.
“We will let the front line speak,” Kassem said.
Fierce fighting rocked the southern Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil on Monday, as Israeli troops appeared to encircle the area while Hezbollah militants launched rockets and artillery in an effort to push them back.
The clashes in the hilly town that overlooks the U.N.-mandated Blue Line dividing the two countries just over 2 miles (3 kilometers) away have intensified over the past week, after Iran and the United States agreed to a temporary truce. On Tuesday, Lebanon and Israel's ambassadors to the U.S. are set to meet in Washington for an in-person meeting in a bid to kick off a landmark series of direct negotiations.
Israel has scaled back its attacks in Lebanon, especially in Beirut, after a series of deadly strikes without warning hit the heart of the capital in some of its busiest residential and commercial areas, killing more than 350 people.
At the same time, Israel appears to have stepped up strikes and a ground invasion in southern Lebanon, where it intends to create a security zone along the Litani River, almost 20 miles (around 30 kilometers) from the border. Bint Jbeil is among dozens of towns and villages south of the river that Israel called to evacuate early on in the war.
Hezbollah political official Wafic Safa told The Associated Press Monday that in the town of Bint Jbeil “there are bloody battles that are still being fought until now” and confirmed that a large number of the group’s fighters were besieged there.
“So far, this battle has not ended,” he said. “Of course, there are martyrs for us. This is very normal. There are certainly losses to the Israeli enemy.”
Israel's military said that its troops surrounded Hezbollah infrastructure and started ground operations in Bint Jbeil and surrounding areas, killing more than 100 Hezbollah fighters. Hezbollah didn't immediately announce any fatalities among its ranks, and Israel didn't comment on its military casualties.
On Sunday, Hezbollah said that it carried out at least five attacks on Israeli troops in the town and outskirts with rockets, artillery and drones. According to the group’s statements, Israeli troops were positioned near a school, a hospital and juncture that surrounds the heart of Bint Jbeil. That day, Israel said that its troops attacked Hezbollah forces conducting surveillance from the Bint Jbeil Government Hospital and found a cache of machine guns and rockets.
When Israel occupied southern Lebanon until its withdrawal in 2000, it had relied on Bint Jbeil and other elevated locations for strategic vantage points. A major turning point was Hezbollah retaking the town, and the victory speech by then leader Hassan Nasrallah in a stadium there. The Israeli military on Monday shared a satellite photo showing the stadium apparently destroyed in a strike.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said during a Cabinet meeting Monday that the military was expanding beyond the five hilltops it controlled in southern Lebanon since the ceasefire with Hezbollah in 2024, toward a “solid, deeper security zone." He said that it was in order to protect northern Israel.
Elsewhere, a Lebanese Red Cross volunteer killed in an Israeli strike Sunday while on a mission in the southern village of Beit Yahoun was laid to rest in Choueifat, just south of Beirut.
Hassan Badawi, 31, and a colleague were going to a house that was struck by Israel a short drive from where they were stationed, his colleagues said at the funeral. Their trip was coordinated with the U.N. peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, which liaises with the Israeli army, and they received the go-ahead, according to his colleagues. They drove in ambulances clearly marked with the Red Cross emblem, flashed their emergency lights and wore helmets and flak jackets, they said.
"That is the only protection we have,” said Ahmad Assi, 29, another friend of Badawi and fellow paramedic.
Badawi often relayed the horrors that he witnessed to friends and family while on duty.
“He said they were bombing everywhere, that he felt stuck, like he had to stay because there were too many wounded people that needed his help,” said Mohammed Cheito, one of Badawi’s friends from Lebanese University, where they studied engineering together a decade ago.
On Monday, an Israeli strike near the entrance to Red Cross offices in the coastal city of Tyre killed a wounded person who was being transported, damaging several Red Cross vehicles. A person familiar with the matter, but who wasn't authorized to disclose the information, said on condition of anonymity that the strike targeted a man on a motorcycle transporting the wounded. It's unclear who either people were.
The International Committee of the Red Cross urged for the protection of humanitarian and medical workers in a statement on Monday.
“Saving lives must never cost a life,” said Agnès Dhur, head of the ICRC delegation in Lebanon. “They must be allowed to reach and help the wounded and return unharmed.”
The Israeli military didn't immediately respond to The Associated Press when asked for comment.
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Abby Sewell in Beirut, Isabel DeBre in Choueifat, Lebanon, and Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel, contributed to this report.
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