Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said Hezbollah would not disarm amid Israeli occupation and Israel would not withdraw unless Hezbollah disarms, although the ceasefire stipulates that Israel withdraw.

Salam told The New York Times, in remarks published Wednesday, that he had unsuccessfully urged Chairman of the ceasefire committee Major General Jasper Jeffers to pressure Israel to withdraw. Salam said he raised the issue with Jeffers for several months and reached no result.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi has said that “Bkirki believes that the solution for the file of Hezbollah’s arms should be through diplomacy and not armed confrontation.”

“This is what President Joseph Aoun has adopted and it is the right thing to do,” al-Rahi added, in an interview with An-Nahar newspaper.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea told Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his advisor that they do not have the right to interfere in Lebanese affairs, after Khamenei's adviser Ali Akbar Velayati said Wednesday that "Hezbollah’s presence has become more necessary to Lebanon than water and bread."

"Lebanon is an independent state with its own constitution, governed by a Lebanese authority that was democratically elected, and you have no right to interfere in its affairs," Geagea said.

United Nations Special Coordinator for Lebanon Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert said Thursday that uncertainty remains despite a ceasefire reached a year ago between Lebanon and Israel.

The ceasefire de-escalated two months of devastating hostilities and human suffering on both sides of the Blue Line, offered a ray of hope and raised expectations of more durable solutions, but uncertainty remains, Plasschaert said.

Ali Akbar Velayati, an adviser to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Wednesday that “Hezbollah’s presence has become more necessary to Lebanon than water and bread.”

“Hezbollah has been a rescuer of the Lebanese people,” the adviser suggested.

Lebanon and Cyprus on Wednesday signed a treaty to demarcate their maritime border, with the Cypriot president calling it a “strategic achievement that sends a strong message.”

The treaty ends an almost 20-year impasse that had stalled some oil and gas exploration in the Mediterranean Sea, as Europe seeks alternatives to Russian fuel.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi has said that Israel's occupation of five hills in south Lebanon is obstructing Hezbollah's disarmament, as he called for unity among Christians and for keeping Lebanon out from regional conflicts.

In an interview Tuesday with al-Jadeed, al-Rahi praised President Joseph Aoun and Army chief Rodolphe Haykal. "Aoun is making diplomatic efforts and Haykal is doing a great job," he said, explaining that he is against pressuring the army to disarm Hezbollah by force.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz on Wednesday warned there would be "no calm" in Lebanon if Israel's security was not guaranteed, as Israeli forces intensify operations despite a year-old ceasefire with Hezbollah.

"We will not allow any threats against the inhabitants of the north, and maximum enforcement will continue and even intensify," Katz told the Israeli parliament.

Pope Leo XIV told journalists Tuesday at Castel Gandolfo in Italy that he is "very happy to be able to visit Lebanon."

Leo XIV said that Israel's strike on Beirut's southern suburb this weekend is a serious cause for concern, urging everyone to find ways to abandon the use of weapons as a means of solving problems.

Pope Leo XIV is embarking on his first foreign trip, a pilgrimage to Turkey and Lebanon that would be delicate under any circumstances but is even more fraught given Mideast tensions and the media glare that will document history's first American pope on the road.

Leo is fulfilling a trip Pope Francis planned to make, to mark an important anniversary with the Orthodox church in Turkey. In Lebanon, he'll try to boost a long-suffering Christian community as well as Lebanese of all faiths who are still demanding justice over the 2020 Beirut port blast.