Gaza, November 21: Hezbollah has said its arms are necessary to defend Lebanon following an Israeli decision to withdraw from an occupied village, which the resistance group calls a ploy.
“The resistance and its weapons are still a national need to liberate remaining occupied Lebanese territories,” the Associated Press quoted senior Hezbollah official Hussein Khalil as saying on Saturday.
The resistance movement’s political adviser made the comments after a meeting with Lebanese Christian leader Michel Aoun and days after Israel announced a decision to withdraw from the northern half of Ghajar village.
Khalil said that even if Israeli troops pull out of the village, the Shebaa Farms and the Kfar Shouba Hills remain under occupation, four decades after they were seized by Israel.
On Wednesday, Israeli ministers voted in favor of withdrawing troops from the northern part of the village of Ghajar, which is located on the border with Lebanon, and placing the area under UN control.
But Hezbollah condemned the decision, saying it is an attempt to evade the international legal system.
Ghajar was occupied by the Israeli army during the Six-Day War of 1967. Israeli troops left the northern part in 2000, when the UN affirmed Lebanon’s territorial rights over the area, but they reoccupied the northern part of the village during the 2006 war.
UN Resolution 1701, which ended Israel’s war of aggression against Lebanon, declared that Tel Aviv must stay out of Lebanon.
On Thursday, Hezbollah MP Kamel al-Rifai said the Israeli “plan to pull out from Ghajar is to shift attention and elude the international resolution.”
“The withdrawal from Ghajar is [a] transfer of Israel’s authority from an occupation force to a mandate,” he stated.
——–Agencies