Lebanese Foreign Minister Youssef Raji informed his Iranian counterpart, Abbas Araghchi, on Tuesday that Hezbollah put his country in a “difficult situation” when it embarked on more than a year of fighting with Israel in 2023, and stressed the importance of disarming the Tehran-backed terror group.
Araghchi met with Raji — a member of the Lebanese Forces party — in Beirut, on his first visit to Lebanon since October last year, when Hezbollah was in the midst of an all-out war with Israel in southern Lebanon.
A month later, Beirut and Jerusalem would sign a ceasefire agreement that brought an end to the fighting
During the meeting, Raji told Araghchi that recent “military adventures” — an apparent reference to Hezbollah — had put the country in a “difficult situation,” the Saudi Al Arabiya news outlet reported.
These adventures, Raji told his Iranian counterpart, “had not contributed to ending the Israeli occupation of Lebanese territory.”
When Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon following the deployment of the Lebanese Armed Forces per the terms of the November 2024 ceasefire, it left troops stationed in five strategic hills located several hundred meters inside Lebanon, which it says are necessary to defend Israeli border communities.
Six months on from the start of the ceasefire, the Lebanese state has been working methodically to dismantle Hezbollah infrastructure in the south of the country, and is estimated to have seized the majority of the group’s weapons stockpile south of the Litani River area.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal last week, Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said that his government had achieved 80 percent of its objectives regarding the disarmament of militias in the country’s south.
“All over the Lebanese territory, the state should have a monopoly on arms,” Salam told the US outlet, stressing “the need to extend and consolidate the authority of the state.”
Echoing his prime minister on Tuesday, Raji appeared to take a firm stance against allowing Iran’s agenda to influence Lebanon’s future, telling Araghchi that the country’s ability to recover from the recent fighting was tied to Hezbollah’s disarmament, Al Arabiya reported.
Unprovoked, Hezbollah began attacking military outposts and communities in northern Israel on October 8, 2023, in a show of support for fellow Iranian proxy Hamas in Gaza after its assault on southern Israel a day earlier.
The fighting continued for more than a year, including some two months of open war in southern Lebanon, and ended with the ceasefire signed in late November.
The fighting displaced over 1 million people inside Lebanon, and caused destruction that the World Bank has said will cost $11 billion in reconstruction.
Raji informed Araghchi that “coordination between Lebanon and Iran should occur through official state channels,” rather than via proxies like Hezbollah, which enjoys Tehran’s support, monetary and otherwise, having received billions of dollars and all types of weapons over the years.