Blinken says aim is to bar Hezbollah from 'threatening Israel, holding Lebanese hostage'

Hezbollah has become “a shadow of its former self” after its leadership was “eliminated” and “its terrorist infrastructure of tunnels and weapons manufacturing” was “ravaged” by Israel’s strikes, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said.

“Hezbollah’s battered forces have retreated north of the Litani River as part of a U.S.-brokered ceasefire agreement,” Blinken said in a speech to the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based think tank.

Commenting on the 14 months of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, Blinken claimed that the group’s “aggression” has come at “grave cost for Israelis and Lebanese people alike.”

“Some seventy thousand Israelis have been forced from their homes along Israel’s northern border. In Lebanon thousands have been killed, a quarter of Lebanon’s population displaced,” Blinken said.

He revealed that Washington’s goal in seeking a cessation of hostilities was “not merely to pause the fighting and avert a broader regional war.”

“Rather, we aim to prevent Hezbollah from reconstituting itself in a way that can threaten Israel or continue to hold the Lebanese state and the Lebanese people hostage. And we wanted to create conditions allowing displaced Israeli and Lebanese families to return safely to their homes,” Blinken said.

He added that the arrangement the U.S. brokered together with France “meets those benchmarks.”

“It empowers the government of Lebanon to retake control of its territory. It provides Lebanon’s economy and security forces with much needed aid and support. It preserves Israel’s right to defend itself in accordance with international law. It achieves Israel’s aim of delinking hostilities on its northern front from the war in Gaza,” Blinken said.

He added that the U.S. and France are “working hour by hour to monitor the agreement and to address violations.”

“And now, just six weeks after the deal, Lebanon’s parliament voted overwhelmingly to elect a new president -- the first time the country has had a national leader in more than two years. Just yesterday, it elected a new prime minister. Both are important steps to becoming a secure, sovereign, and successful nation, and to meeting the needs of the Lebanese people,” Blinken went on to say.