Dubai, United Arab Emirates
CNN
–
Israel’s military occupation in parts of southern Lebanon is undermining Beirut’s attempts to restore sovereignty over a country that is shaking from decades of conflict, the country’s prime minister told CNN.
Lebanon Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said he hopes the current US administration will pressure Israel to withdraw from five locations in southern Lebanon.
The US-mediated agreement last November suspended a months-long battle between Israeli military forces and Hezbollah, a powerful Iran-backed extremist group operating in Lebanon. Israel has significantly weakened Hezbollah over the past year, killing much of its top leadership and severely degraded its power through massive airstrikes.
The Prime Minister said Lebanon respects its commitment to the November agreement and that the Lebanese military is “integrating” to “integrate” across the country and its borders.
Hezbollah is committed to an agreement that asserts that the Lebanese army is the only authority permitted to pay arms, Salam said Wednesday. However, he added, “Israel does not respect its commitment.”
“The presence of Israel in Lebanon is a red line for everyone. This is not a red line for Hezbollah alone,” he tells Becky Anderson of CNN in Dubai, where he attends an Arab media forum and meets Emirati’s leader.
“The Israeli debate is: To better monitor the situation in southern Lebanon, we need to be at these five points… But we are not World War I… we are in the age of satellite imagery, the age of camera drones. We have balloons that monitor the area.
“Israel’s existence is politically counterproductive. It’s undermining my government… We want to drive Israel out of yesterday and not tomorrow.”
Despite agreeing to withdraw from Lebanon’s territory as part of the US-mediated agreement, Israel said Lebanese forces still do not control the area with Hezbollah’s presence. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said in March that Israeli forces remain at these five points.
Along with the United States, France and the United Nations are monitoring the ceasefire.
“I am confident that while Lebanon respects its commitment, Israel can testify that it does not respect its commitment,” Salam told the mediation state.
Salam, who became prominent after he took the lead side of the International Court of Justice during the South African Massacre against Israel, was designated Lebanon’s prime minister in January for a surprising move that was considered a blow to Hezbollah and its allies.
The prime minister, widely seen as a reformist, has declared certain priorities for his mission, including ending institutional corruption and regaining sovereignty over his country by disarming the Hezbollah and Palestinian factions.
“The goal is… that states should have a more monopoly than all of their territory than arms,” he said in an interview.
