{"id":45765,"date":"2026-08-15T03:10:49","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T22:10:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=45765"},"modified":"2026-08-15T03:10:49","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T22:10:49","slug":"hezbollah-chief-calls-to-reverse-mistake-of-direct-talks-with-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=45765","title":{"rendered":"Hezbollah chief calls to reverse &#8216;mistake&#8217; of direct talks with Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdnph.upi.com\/ph\/st\/th\/4971786733430\/2026\/i\/17867339993583\/v1.5\/Hezbollah-chief-calls-to-reverse-mistake-of-direct-talks-with-Israel.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Hezbollah Secretary General Sheikh Naim Qassem called Friday for \u201creversing the sinful, disgraceful and humiliating mistake\u201d of Lebanon negotiating peace with Israel. File Photo by Wael Hamzeh\/EPA<\/p>\n<div id=\"\">\n<p><span class=\"story_dl\">BEIRUT, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.upi.com\/topic\/Lebanon\/\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Lebanon\" class=\"tpstyle\">Lebanon<\/a>, Aug. 14 (UPI) &#8212;<\/span> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.upi.com\/topic\/Hezbollah\/\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Hezbollah\" class=\"tpstyle\">Hezbollah<\/a> leader Sheikh Naim Qassem lashed out at the Lebanese officials Friday for accepting the June 26 U.S.-brokered framework agreement with Israel and failing to secure any gains after seven rounds of negotiations.<\/p>\n<p>He called for an end to &#8220;the humiliation&#8221; and urging the officials to reverse &#8220;the sinful mistake.&#8221;\n<\/p>\n<p>Qassem said in a speech broadcast by Hezbollah-run <a href=\"https:\/\/www.upi.com\/topic\/Al_Manar\/\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Al Manar\" class=\"tpstyle\">Al Manar<\/a> TV that the initial agreement, a conditional and phased process aimed at ending the state of war, amounted to &#8220;Israeli dictates&#8221; that gave Israel &#8220;everything it wants,&#8221; while the Lebanese authorities relinquished their sovereignty.<\/p>\n<p>He called for &#8220;reversing the sinful, disgraceful and humiliating mistake,&#8221; which raises question marks about &#8220;what these officials are doing.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Lebanese President Joseph Aoun decided to engage in direct talks with Israel in what he believed was the only viable path to ending the war, despite Hezbollah&#8217;s staunch opposition. Aoun was betting that U.S. President <a href=\"https:\/\/www.upi.com\/topic\/Donald_Trump\/\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Donald Trump\" class=\"tpstyle\">Donald Trump<\/a> alone could pressure Israel to withdraw its troops and help Lebanon restore its sovereignty.\n<\/p>\n<p>The war broke out when Hezbollah opened a support front for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.upi.com\/topic\/Gaza\/\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Gaza\" class=\"tpstyle\">Gaza<\/a> on Oct. 8, 2023, and resumed fighting in solidarity with Iran on March 2 this year, triggering a massive Israeli retaliation that significantly degraded the Iran-backed group and caused widespread destruction in southern Lebanon and other parts of the country.<\/p>\n<p>Israel, which reduced some 70 border villages in southern Lebanon to rubble and rendered them uninhabitable while occupying a 6-mile &#8220;buffer zone,&#8221; insists that it will not withdraw its troops unless Hezbollah is completely disarmed.<\/p>\n<p>The framework agreement, reached by Lebanese and Israeli negotiating teams under pressure from Washington, provides for a phased Israeli withdrawal from occupied parts of southern Lebanon to allow the Lebanese Army to &#8220;restore effective sovereign authority,&#8221; beginning with its deployment in two initial pilot zones.<\/p>\n<p>The initial accord also addressed plans to disarm Hezbollah, Iran&#8217;s main proxy and once its most powerful regional non-state armed actor.<\/p>\n<p>Despite the Lebanese Army&#8217;s deployment in the village of Zawtar al-Gharbieh &#8212; the first pilot zone in southern Lebanon &#8212; Israel continued to carry out strikes, destroy homes and demolish Hezbollah tunnels and military infrastructure.<\/p>\n<p>Qassem pointed out that Israel would not have carried out &#8220;all this aggression and genocide without the Americans.&#8221;\n<\/p>\n<p>Addressing Lebanese officials, he asked them to &#8220;name a single achievement from the seven rounds of negotiations. Israel got everything it wanted and everything it sought.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He accused the officials of failing to withdraw from the negotiations with Israel, saying that what is happening &#8220;amounts to surrender, which we do not accept.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Qassem credited Iran for progress, saying that the Iran-U.S. negotiations in Islamabad brought about the return of displaced people to southern Lebanon and a cease-fire that reduced the escalation, rather than the direct negotiations.<\/p>\n<p>He said the war was &#8220;an existential war of aggression,&#8221; and that his group would &#8220;stand firm and defeat the Israeli project&#8221; and that those betting on surrender were &#8220;betting on a mirage.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hezbollah Secretary General Sheikh Naim Qassem called Friday for \u201creversing the sinful, disgraceful and humiliating mistake\u201d of Lebanon negotiating peace with Israel. File Photo by Wael Hamzeh\/EPA BEIRUT, Lebanon, Aug. 14 (UPI) &#8212; Hezbollah leader Sheikh Naim Qassem lashed out at the Lebanese officials Friday for accepting the June 26 U.S.-brokered framework agreement with Israel&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45766,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cdnph.upi.com\/sv\/ph\/og\/i\/4971786733430\/2026\/1\/17867339993583\/v1.5\/Hezbollah-chief-calls-to-reverse-mistake-of-direct-talks-with-Israel.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-hub"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/45766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}