Hezbollah deputy leader says group will stop fighting Israel after Gaza ceasefire

BEIRUT (AP) — The deputy leader of the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah said Tuesday that the only sure path to a cease-fire on the Lebanon-Israel border is a complete cease-fire in Gaza.

“If there is a cease-fire in Gaza, we will stop without any discussion,” Hezbollah deputy leader Sheikh Naim Kassem said in an interview with The Associated Press at the group’s political office in Beirut’s southern suburbs.

Hezbollah’s participation in the war between Israel and Hamas has been a “support front” for its ally Hamas, Kassem said, and “if the war stops, this military support will no longer exist.”

But, he added, if Israel scales back its military operations without a formal ceasefire agreement and a full withdrawal from Gaza, the implications for the border conflict between Lebanon and Israel are less clear.

“If what is happening in Gaza is a mixture between ceasefire and no ceasefire, war and no war, we cannot answer (how we would react) now, because we do not know its form, its results, its impacts,” Kassem said in a 40-minute interview.

The war began on October 7 after Hamas terrorists invaded southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people and kidnapping about 250.

Negotiations on a ceasefire in Gaza have collapsed in recent weeks, raising fears of an escalation on the Lebanese-Israeli front. Hezbollah has carried out near-daily strikes with Israeli forces along their border for the past nine months.

The low-intensity conflict between Israel and Hezbollah has displaced tens of thousands of people on both sides of the Israeli-Lebanese border. In northern Israel, 16 soldiers and 11 civilians have been killed.

Last month, the Israeli military said it had “approved and validated” plans for an offensive in Lebanon if no diplomatic solution to the ongoing clashes was found. Any decision to launch such an operation would have to come from the country’s political leaders.

Some Israeli officials have said they are seeking a diplomatic solution to the situation and hope to avoid war. They have also warned that the scenes of destruction seen in Gaza would be repeated in Lebanon if war breaks out.

Hezbollah, for its part, is far more powerful than Hamas and is said to have a vast arsenal of rockets and missiles capable of striking anywhere in Israel.

Kassem said he did not believe Israel currently has the capability – or has made the decision – to launch a full-scale war against Hezbollah. He warned that even if Israel intended to launch a limited operation in Lebanon that would not lead to a full-scale war, it should not expect the fighting to remain limited.

“Israel can decide what it wants: a limited war, a total war, a partial war,” he said. “But it must expect that our response and our resistance will not be limited to a ceiling and rules of engagement set by Israel… If Israel wages war, it means that it does not control its scale or those who participate in it.”

The latter point apparently refers to Hezbollah’s allies in the Iranian-backed “axis of resistance” in the region. Armed groups in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and elsewhere – and, potentially, Iran itself – could enter the fray in the event of a full-scale war in Lebanon, which could also involve Israel’s most powerful ally, the United States.

American and European diplomats have been touring Lebanon and Israel for months in an attempt to avert a wider conflict.

Kassem said he met in Beirut on Saturday with German deputy intelligence chief Ole Dieh. U.S. officials do not meet directly with Hezbollah, which Washington considers a terrorist group, but they regularly exchange messages through intermediaries.

Kassem said White House envoy Amos Hochstein recently asked through Hezbollah to pressure Hamas to accept a ceasefire and hostage exchange proposal put forward by U.S. President Joe Biden. He said Hezbollah rejected the request.

“Hamas makes its decisions and anyone who wants to ask something should speak to them directly,” he said.

Kassem criticized US efforts to find a solution to the Gaza war, saying the US supported Israel’s plans to end Hamas’ presence in the Gaza Strip. A constructive agreement, he said, would aim to end the war, secure Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza and secure the release of the hostages.

Once a ceasefire is reached, a political path can then determine arrangements inside Gaza and on the front with Lebanon, he added.