UPDATE – Lebanese prime minister bans Hezbollah’s military activities

UPDATES WITH HEZBOLLAH MP’S REACTION

By Wassim Seifeddin

BEIRUT, Lebanon / ISTANBUL (AA) - Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said Monday his government has banned Hezbollah’s military and security activities and limited the group’s role to political work, ordering the army to enforce a plan to restrict weapons to state control north of the Litani River.

“The state rejects any military or security actions launched from Lebanese territory,” Salam told a news conference after a Cabinet meeting at the presidential palace east of Beirut, chaired by President Joseph Aoun.

He said the Cabinet decided to prohibit any military operations outside “legitimate state institutions.”

“The decision of war and peace rests exclusively with the state,” he stressed.

Salam said the move requires limiting Hezbollah’s activities and obligating the group to hand over its weapons, describing its recent actions as “a violation of Cabinet decisions.”

He instructed the Lebanese army command to implement the government’s plan decisively, particularly the provision aimed at restricting weapons north of the Litani River.

Hezbollah said early Monday that it had targeted a military site in northern Israel with a barrage of rockets and drones, in response to ongoing Israeli attacks on Lebanon and a joint US-Israeli military campaign on Iran.

Israel launched a series of airstrikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs and southern Lebanon in response, killing at least 52 and injuring 154, according to Lebanese authorities.

Hezbollah lawmaker Mohammad Raad rejected the ban, accusing the government of creating additional problems and fueling tensions in the country.

"We understand the Lebanese government's impotence in the face of the brutal Israeli enemy, which violates national sovereignty, occupies land, and poses a continuous threat to the country's security and stability,” Raad, head of Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc, said in a statement carried by Hezbollah’s Al-Manar television.

"We also understand its right to decide on war and peace, and its inability to implement and impose this decision on the enemy, which violates national peace and persists in its war of aggression against Lebanon and its people,” he added.

He said Hezbollah sees “no justification” for the government’s ban on the group.

"The Lebanese were expecting a decision to ban aggression, but instead they were faced with a decision to ban the rejection of aggression," Raad added.

Since a ceasefire with Hezbollah took effect in late November 2024, Israel has committed near-daily violations in Lebanon that have killed hundreds of people.

Israel began its offensive against Lebanon in October 2023 and escalated it into a full-scale war in September 2024, killing more than 4,000 people and wounding about 17,000.