Hezbollah will not disarm or surrender under threat from Israel, leader says

Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem said the Lebanese militant group will only disarm after Israel’s aggression stops first

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A Hezbollah supporter holds a poster reading ‘We shall not abandon our weapons’ as others listen during a Shiite sermon, in Beirut, Lebanon, on Sunday. Photo: AP

Published: 5:52pm, 6 Jul 2025

Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem said on Sunday his group would not surrender or lay down its weapons in response to Israeli threats, despite pressure on the Lebanese militant group to disarm.

“This threat will not make us accept surrender,” Qassem said in a televised speech to thousands of his supporters in the southern suburbs of Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold, during the Shiite Muslim religious commemoration of Ashura.

Lebanese leaders who took office in the aftermath of a war between Israel and Hezbollah last year have repeatedly vowed a state monopoly on bearing arms while demanding Israel comply with a November ceasefire that ended the fighting.

Qassem, who succeeded long-time leader Hassan Nasrallah after Israel killed him in September, said the group’s fighters would not abandon their arms and asserted that Israel’s “aggression” must first stop.

His speech came as US envoy Tom Barrack was expected in Beirut on Monday.

A Hezbollah supporter who lost his sight in a pager attack carried out by Israel on September 17 last year, covers his eyes with a red headband inscribed with the name ‘Hussein’ during Ashoura, the Shiite Muslim commemoration marking the 7th-century death of Imam Hussein, in Beirut, Lebanon, on Sunday. Photo: AP

Lebanese authorities are due to deliver a response to Barrack’s request for Iran-backed Hezbollah to be disarmed by the end of the year, according to a Lebanese official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

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