BEIRUT - Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem said on July 6 that his group will not surrender nor lay down its weapons in response to Israeli threats, despite pressure on the Lebanese militants to disarm.

“This threat will not make us accept surrender,” he said in a televised speech to thousands of his supporters in the southern suburbs of Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold, during the Shi’ite Muslim religious commemoration of Ashura.

Lebanese leaders who took office in the aftermath of a war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2024 have repeatedly vowed a state monopoly on bearing arms while demanding that Israel comply with

a November ceasefire that ended the fighting

Mr Qassem, who succeeded long-time leader Hassan Nasrallah whom Israel killed last September, said the group’s fighters would not abandon their arms and asserted that Israel’s “aggression” must first stop.

His speech came as US envoy Tom Barrack was expected in Beirut on July 7.

Lebanese authorities are due to deliver a response to Mr Barrack’s request for Iran-backed Hezbollah to be disarmed by the end of the year, according to a Lebanese official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Lebanese authorities say they have been dismantling Hezbollah’s military infrastructure in the south, near the Israeli border.

Israel has continued to strike Lebanon despite the November ceasefire, claiming to hit Hezbollah targets and accusing Beirut of not doing enough to disarm the group.

According to the ceasefire agreement, Hezbollah is to pull its fighters back north of the Litani river, some 30km from the Israeli frontier.

Israel was to withdraw its troops from all of Lebanon, but has