Region | Lebanon
'We are now more powerful'
Thirty three days of Israeli war on Lebanon have strengthened Hezbollah inside Lebanon and boosted its popularity abroad, said a member of the group's politburo.
- By Jumana Al Tamimi, GCC & Middle East Editor
- Published: 00:00 August 15, 2006
- Image Credit: Reuters
- A boy covers his mouth as he stands on the rubble of a building, which was destroyed in an Israeli air raid on Sunday, in Beirut's southern suburbs Guns fell silent across southern Lebanon yesterday after a UN-brokered truce went into effect to end five weeks of fighting.
Dubai: Thirty three days of Israeli war on Lebanon have strengthened Hezbollah inside Lebanon and boosted its popularity abroad, said a member of the group's politburo.
He also described the issue of surrendering Hezbollah's arms as a "secondary" issue under the present circumstances.
"We consider any talk in this regard as futile talk and a secondary issue," said Mustafa Haj Ali, in an interview with Gulf News.
"This issue is to be left for official talks either inside the cabinet or at the dialogue table or for dialogue among the main political powers [in Lebanon]," he added.
"We say this is not the right time, especially as we are still in war time, and the Israeli enemy has not lifted its embargo on Lebanon's air and sea....The war is not practically behind us yet, and we have not entered a new era," said Ali.
Different positions on disarming Hezbollah, which was the force behind the end of the Israeli occupation of Lebanon in 2000, was the reason behind postponing a government session on Sunday, according to Lebanese official sources.
The UN Security Council resolution 1701 aimed to end the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah and calls for "disarmament of all armed groups in lebanon, so that, pursuant to the Lebanese cabinet decision of July 27 there will be no weapons or authority in Lebanon other than the Lebanese state."
Both the Lebanese government and Hezbollah had their own "observations" and "reservations" on the resolution. But they accepted it to end the war.
Also yesterday, a Lebanese minister was quoted as saying that Hezbollah must disarm and the government has to extend its control over all parts of Lebanon.
"Hezbollah has to deliver its weapons to the Lebanese army, and its light weapons to the police. I'm not telling Hezbollah to surrender its weapons to Israel, or to the international community," Lebanese industry minister, Pierre Jemayel, was quoted as telling the Kuwaiti Arabic language Al Siyassah daily newspaper.
"I am telling it to surrender them to the Lebanese army."
However, Ali said the "majority of the Lebanese people expresses its consolidation with the resistance option, the necessity of its continuation, and the necessity of the armed resistance".
The Israeli war on Lebanon, which ceased yesterday morning according to resolution 1701, has positively affected the group in Lebanon and abroad.
"Thank God, we have come out of the war more powerful, with what the resistance members showed in facing the region's superpower supported by the world's superpower," he said, in reference to both Israel and the US.
Hezbollah surpassed Lebanese borders and became a "leading group for all the free people in the world", Ali said.
Scores of pro-Hezbollah demonstrations and those against the war on Lebanon were organised worldwide.
The group has won a "major and qualitative battle, but I can't say that it was the final war," said Ali, in the interview conducted a few hours after the ceasefire came into effect with no serious violation.
Meanwhile, observers expect Israel who failed in achieving its two announced aims of launching the war on Lebanon to eliminate the Lebanese group and free the two soldiers captured on July 12, to blame Hezbollah for failing to fulfil the articles of the UN resolution.
But Hezbollah played down the importance of such moves.
"It is enough now for anybody to wander in Lebanon to see the gravity of the massacres committed by Israel and how such an enemy with this inhuman and barbaric [behaviour] ... can flip and become a peace advocate."
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