Lebanese leaders indirectly urge Hezbollah to stay out of the Israel-Iran conflict

BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon’s president and prime minister said Monday that their country must stay out of the conflict between Israel and Iran because any engagement would be detrimental to the small nation engulfed in an economic crisis and struggling to recover from the latest Israel-Hezbollah war.

Their remarks amounted to a message to the Lebanese militant Hezbollah group — an ally of both Iran and the Palestinian militant Hamas group in Gaza — to stay out of the fray.

Hezbollah, which launched its own strikes on Israel a day after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack, has been hard-hit and suffered significant losses on the battlefield until a U.S.-brokered ceasefire last November ended the 14 months of fighting between Hezbollah and Israel.

Earlier this year, Hamas fighters inside Lebanon fired rockets from Lebanese soil, drawing Israeli airstrikes and leading to arrests of Hamas members by Lebanese authorities.

The Hezbollah-Israel war left over 4,000 people dead in Lebanon and caused destruction worth $11 billions; Hezbollah was pushed away from areas bordering Israel in south Lebanon. In Israel, 127 people, including 80 soldiers, were killed during the war.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam spoke during a Cabinet meeting Monday that also discussed the Iran-Israel conflict and the spike in regional tensions over the past four days.

Information Minister Paul Morkos later told reporters that Aoun urged all sides in Lebanon to maintain calm and preserve the country’s stability. For his part, Salam said Lebanon should not be involved in “any form in the war,” Morkos added.

Hezbollah, funded and armed by Iran, has long been considered Tehran’s most powerful ally in the region but its latest war with Israel also saw much of Hezbollah’s political and military leadership killed in Israeli airstrikes.

Since Israel on Friday launched strikes targeting Iran’s nuclear program and top military leaders, drawing Iran’s retaliatory ballistic missiles at Israel, the back-and-forth has raised concerns that the region, already on edge over the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, would be plunged into even greater upheaval.