Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun says his country seeks peace with Israel, but is not ready to normalise ties.
Lebanon’s president says his country wants peace but not normalisation with Israel, as health authorities said an Israeli air strike killed one person in the south of the country.
As well as causing one death on Friday, the drone attack on a car in Nabatieh district wounded five other people, according to Lebanon’s Ministry of Health.
It comes as Israel continues to launch regular strikes against sites in Lebanon, particularly in the south, despite a November 27 ceasefire agreement between it and the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah.
Under the terms of the truce, Hezbollah had to retreat to the north of the Litani River, which is about 30km (20 miles) from the Israeli border, while Israel had to fully withdraw its troops, leaving only the Lebanese army and United Nations peacekeepers in the area.
However, Israel still occupies five strategic locations in southern Lebanon.
Speaking on Friday, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun expressed a desire for peaceful relations with his country’s neighbour. But he stressed that Beirut was not currently interested in normalising ties with Israel, something mentioned as a possibility by Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar last week.
“Peace is the lack of a state of war, and this is what matters to us in Lebanon at the moment. As for the issue of normalisation, it is not currently part of Lebanese foreign policy,” said Aoun, who urged Israel to withdraw completely from Lebanon.
In a reference to the US’s ongoing call for Lebanon to fully disarm Hezbollah, the Lebanese president also expressed Beirut’s desire to “hold the monopoly over weapons in the country”, but he did not give further details.
Hezbollah, which is considerably weakened after more than a year of hostilities with Israel, has dismissed questions about disarmament.
“We cannot be asked to soften our stance or lay down arms while [Israeli] aggression continues,” its leader Naim Qassem told crowds in southern Beirut on Sunday.
On Wednesday, the Israeli military confirmed that some of its troops had entered southern Lebanon, with the army saying they sought to dismantle Hezbollah infrastructure and to stop the group from “reestablishing itself in the area”.
The following day, a man was killed by an Israeli drone strike on a motorbike in the village of al-Mansouri near Tyre, the Lebanese Ministry of Health said. Two others were injured in the attack, it added.