Cabinet approves US paper, Shiite ministers walk out

Shiite members of Lebanon's Cabinet walked out of a government meeting on Thursday in protest of the government's approval of the objectives of U.S. envoy Tom Barrack's paper.

The rest of the Cabinet then voted in favor of the U.S.-backed plan to disarm Hezbollah and implement a ceasefire with Israel.

Tensions have been rising in Lebanon amid increased domestic and international pressure for Hezbollah to give up its remaining arsenal after a bruising war with Israel that ended last November with a U.S.-brokered ceasefire.

Hezbollah itself has doubled down on its refusal to disarm.

The four ministers who walked out before the vote included members of Hezbollah's parliamentary bloc and the allied Amal Movement, as well as independent Shiite minister Fadi Makki.

Makki said on X that he had "tried to work on bridging the gaps and bringing viewpoints closer between all parties, but I didn't succeed."

He said he decided to pull out of the meeting after the other Shiite ministers left. "I couldn't bear the responsibility of making such a significant decision in the absence of a key component from the discussion," he said.

- The plan to disarm Hezbollah -

The Lebanese government asked the national army on Tuesday to prepare a plan in which only state institutions in the small nation will have weapons by the end of the year.

After the Cabinet meeting, Hezbollah accused the government of caving to United States and Israeli pressure and said it would "treat this decision as if it does not exist."

Information Minister Paul Morcos later said the Cabinet had voted to adopt a list of general goals laid out in a proposal submitted by U.S. envoy Tom Barrack to Lebanese officials.

They include the "gradual end of the armed presence of all non-state actors, including Hezbollah, in all Lebanese territory," the withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon, a halt to Israeli airstrikes and the release of Lebanese prisoners held in Israel, as well as the eventual demarcation of the still-disputed Lebanon-Israel border, he said.

The details of the U.S. proposal are still under discussion, Morcos added.

Hezbollah officials have said the group will not discuss giving up its remaining arsenal until Israel withdraws from five hills it is occupying inside Lebanon and stops almost daily airstrikes. The strikes have killed or wounded hundreds of people, most of them Hezbollah members, since the latest Hezbollah-Israel war ended in November.

While the Cabinet meeting was still underway, an Israeli strike on the road leading to Lebanon's main border crossing with Syria killed five people and injured 10 others, Lebanon's health ministry said. There was no immediate comment from Israel.

Israel has accused Hezbollah of trying to rebuild its military capabilities and said it is protecting its border. Since the ceasefire, Hezbollah has claimed responsibility for one attack across the border.

The ceasefire agreement mandated that both Hezbollah and Israel should withdraw from southern Lebanon but left vague how Hezbollah's weapons and military facilities farther north of the border area would be treated, saying Lebanese authorities should dismantle unauthorized facilities, starting with the area south of the Litani River.

Hezbollah claims the deal only applies to the area south of the Litani, while Israel and the U.S. say it mandates disarmament of the group throughout Lebanon.

- International efforts for peace -

Andrea Tenenti, a spokesperson for the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, said that peacekeepers — along Lebanese army soldiers — recently found a "vast network of fortified tunnels" in different areas of southern Lebanon.

They include "several bunkers, artillery pieces, multiple rocket launchers, hundreds of shells and rockets, anti-tank mines, and other explosive devices," he said.

Tenenti did not specify what group was behind the tunnels and the arms.

A member of the U.S. Congress said that Washington will push Israel to withdraw from all of southern Lebanon if the Lebanese Army asserts full control over the country.

"We will push hard to make sure that there is — and this is something that I will work with the Israelis on — a complete withdrawal in return for the Lebanese Armed Forces showing its ability to secure all Lebanon," California Republican Rep. Darrell Issa said, after meeting with President Joseph Aoun in Baabda.

He did not specify whether the U.S. would ask Israel to start withdrawing its forces from the territory it is occupying in southern Lebanon before or after Hezbollah gives up its arsenal.

Issa, who is of Lebanese origin, said the U.S. must "help all the neighbors around understand that it is the exclusive right of the Lebanese Armed Forces to make decisions."

"If there's something that goes wrong, the Lebanese Armed Forces will be asked to to be responsible," he said.

Sources close to Hezbollah had told Al-Arabiya television that "the outcome of contacts after the cabinet session will lead to either ending the debate over arms or resigning from the government."

Speaking in the session, Labor Minister Mohammad Haidar of Hezbollah said: “I’m the son of these people. How can I face the mother of a martyr, a mother who is still living in a tent, or a young man who is living an existential concern every day? How can I tell him that he has to obey and give up the only guarantee that protects him?”

“We cannot discuss the resistance’s army before the enemy withdraws, our captives return, the attacks stop and the reconstruction begins. I apologize for not being able to bear the responsibility for aggrieving my people and I do not accept that the state abandon its people,” Haidar added.

The ministers of Hezbollah and the Amal Movement had walked out of Tuesday's meeting on disarmament in protest at the decision to task the army with presenting a Hezbollah disarmament plan before the end of the month.

Hezbollah described the walkout as a rejection of the government's "decision to subject Lebanon to American tutelage and Israeli occupation."

Citing "political sources" with knowledge of the matter, pro-Hezbollah newspaper al-Akhbar said the group and its Amal allies could choose to withdraw their four ministers from the government or trigger a no-confidence vote in parliament by the Shiite bloc, which comprises 27 of Lebanon's 128 lawmakers.

With Washington pressing Lebanon to take action on the matter, U.S. envoy Tom Barrack has made several visits to Beirut in recent weeks, presenting officials with a proposal that includes a timetable for Hezbollah's disarmament.

Amid the U.S. pressure and fears Israel could expand its strikes in Lebanon, PM Nawaf Salam said Tuesday that the government had tasked the army with developing a plan to restrict weapons to government forces by the end of 2025.

The decision is unprecedented since the end of Lebanon's civil war more than three decades ago, when the country's armed factions -- with the exception of Hezbollah -- agreed to surrender their weapons.

The government said the new disarmament push was part of implementing a November ceasefire that sought to end more than a year of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah.

That conflict culminated last year in two months of full-blown war that left the group badly weakened, both politically and militarily.

Hezbollah said on Wednesday that it would treat the government's decision to disarm it "as if it did not exist," accusing the cabinet of committing a "grave sin."

It added that the move "undermines Lebanon's sovereignty and gives Israel a free hand to tamper with its security, geography, politics and future existence."

The Amal Movement, Hezbollah's main ally headed by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, also criticized the move and called Thursday's cabinet meeting "an opportunity for correction."

Iran, Hezbollah's military and financial backer, said on Wednesday that any decision on disarmament "will ultimately rest with Hezbollah itself."

"We support it from afar, but we do not intervene in its decisions," Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi added, saying the group had "rebuilt itself" after the war with Israel.

Israel -- which routinely carries out air strikes in Lebanon despite the ceasefire, saying it is targeting Hezbollah fighters and infrastructure -- has already signaled it would not hesitate to launch destructive military operations if Beirut failed to disarm the group.