Lebanese PM and Hezbollah chief exchange barbs ahead of Rome talks

BEIRUT — Hezbollah’s chief said on Tuesday that direct talks between Lebanon and Israel would bring only “humiliation” for Lebanon and accused authorities of helping Israel, prompting Lebanon’s prime minister to hit back.

The statement came as Lebanon and Israel were preparing to hold a fresh round of direct talks in Rome under US sponsorship, the seventh such meeting since the outbreak of the US-Iran war.

“All the direct negotiations will bring Lebanon nothing but shame, humiliation, disappointment and successive concessions,” Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem said in a televised address.

He said Lebanese President Joseph Aoun “has not acted as an arbiter, nor as a unifying figure, but has become biased and divisive, which is incompatible with his role and with Lebanon’s strength.”

The head of the Iran-backed group also accused Lebanese authorities of having “helped Israel instead of helping Lebanon’s sovereignty” by continuing with negotiations that he said had handed Israel “political gains.”

Prime Minister Nawaf Salam hit back on X, saying “the greatest help to Israel was provided by those who unilaterally drew Lebanon into the adventures of futile wars… and granted it pretexts to attack our country.”

“Those who unilaterally take the decision of war and try to continue to seize the state’s decision-making, and to tie Lebanon to foreign calculations and axes, ignoring the interests of their community and the Lebanese in general, are not fit to lecture on patriotism, not to mention on sovereignty,” Salam added.

“Lebanon has no sovereignty except for the sole independent decision of the state with one army which extends its authority over all its territory,” Salam added.

Hezbollah has repeatedly rejected the direct talks and refuses to surrender its weapons.

The Iran-backed terror group first attacked Israel on October 8, 2023, a day after its Hamas allies invaded southern Israel and murdered over 1,200 people. The fragile ceasefire that took effect in November 2024 was ended by Hezbollah in March 2026, when it launched an attack in response to the killing of the Islamic regime’s Ali Khamenei.

Salam said that “dialogue and unity can only be built through the courage to acknowledge the facts, however bitter they may be, and to take responsibility for the reckless choices whose heavy price the Lebanese continue to pay.”

“Those who monopolized the decision to go to war and still seek to seize the state’s decision, tying Lebanon to external calculations and axes while disregarding the interests of their own community, as well as those of Lebanese as a whole, are in no position to hand out certificates of patriotism, let alone sovereignty,” Salam wrote.

Violence has decreased since the last major exchange, but tensions remain high as both sides continue to negotiate under US auspices.