00:03Live from Beirut, we're joined by Hassan Salemi, who's Lebanon's Minister of Culture and former
00:08UN diplomat. Mr. Salemi, thank you very much for being with us here in France 24. We appreciate
00:12it. Tell us your assessment of the situation right now where you are, sir. Over to you,
00:18sir. Go ahead. Thank you.
00:23Give us your assessment, sir, of the situation where you are right now. What are your feelings?
00:27The situation, the situation, the humanitarian situation is difficult, although I will correct
00:33some of the figures you have seen. We have passed the one million mark of displaced persons. Most,
00:41I would say, 95 percent have found a shelter, either privately or in shelters organized by the
00:49government. But it's true that we have problems with like two or three percent of them who do not
00:56want to go far. There are still shelters available in the northern part of the country, but they are
01:02refusing to move when we cannot force them to move to these shelters, because the shelters in Beirut
01:10are now saturated. And it is the same in the third city of the countryside in the south. Now, politically,
01:20we have serious reasons to think that a land attack could take place anytime soon from the Israel side.
01:31First, because there are statements announcing that from members of the Israeli cabinet. Second,
01:38because we are getting information from friendly countries about movement and concentration of troops
01:45in the northern part of the country. And third, because leading personalities on the world scene,
01:52such as Chancellor Meir or President Macron, are asking Israel not to attack, as if they have
02:03substantial evidence that the attack is on the verge of happening. Therefore, this is our main reason
02:12to fear in evolution of this conflict, which has already produced not only one million displaced, but
02:20some 1,000 people killed, a bit less than 1,000, that it will be now escalated into a full
02:29-fledged
02:30land war with the arrival of many tens of thousands of Israeli soldiers on the ground.
02:38It's worth pointing out to people there was supposed to be a ceasefire in place since last November,
02:42but of course, that has been broken many times, with both sides accusing each other of doing that.
02:47I'm wondering how you feel when the Israeli Defense Minister says displaced people, Lebanese families,
02:53won't be allowed to go home until he is ready?
03:00Well, I understand his position, but I cannot share it, because what happened is that a ceasefire,
03:07as you said, has been reached in November 2024. And since then, it has been violated, not by both sides,
03:18but one side. The Hezbollah did not have any answer to the attacks it had to suffer in the past.
03:28But then it changed its mind. It changed its mind without consulting us, without consulting the other
03:35forces, political forces in the country, especially after the assassination of Ayatollah Khamenei,
03:40and the decision by the Israelis to concentrate 100,000 soldiers in the northern part of the country.
03:48I don't know which of the two reasons played a major role in their decision, but this is a decision
03:54for which we are paying the price. All Lebanese are paying the price right now.
03:58Mr Salameh, does Lebanon's future mean working with Hezbollah? Can Hezbollah be gotten rid of,
04:05as Israel wants? Well, depending on what you are talking about, if it's an armed group,
04:14the decision taken by the government already in August and repeated after the latest launching
04:21of rockets last Monday by the same government is to impose the fact that only the government,
04:33legitimate authority, has the right to have weapons, to use them, etc. Therefore, that there is no place
04:40for other players with weapons on the Lebanese scene. And this applies certainly to Hezbollah,
04:47and certainly also applies to various Palestinian groups in the camps. So this is the official position
04:56of the government. On the other side, there is a political party called Hezbollah with members of
05:06parliament, a few of them, who are active in parliamentary affairs, and two members of the
05:14cabinet with, not membership, but with affinities to the group who are my colleagues in the cabinet,
05:23and I would differentiate certainly. And the government has publicly differentiated last
05:32Monday in its decision between the political role played by the MPs and the cabinet members,
05:43and the military activity. And the government has decided that the military activity is illegal,
05:48but that Hezbollah is welcome to play like any other Lebanese party in the political ground.
05:57One can see why that is necessary if they're representing certain people, providing certain jobs
06:03and services. Some talk about a state within a state. That's something, of course, you could debate
06:07on a different level. But in terms of the the armed militia, Mr. Salome, does Lebanon need Israel's
06:14help to help to get rid of that? Can Lebanon do that by itself? Well, we were doing that. We
06:20were doing
06:20that. The Lebanese army has been able to redeploy in areas of South Lebanon where it didn't have set
06:30foot for more than 50 years from the Palestinian bank, where the Palestinians were in control of
06:36South Lebanon. So we were doing that. And we took the decision on August the 5th that from now on,
06:46only the government has the right to use arms and to possess arms in the country. And the army has
06:53been
06:53able also to collect a large number of weapons from Hezbollah in the past 10 months or so. So I
07:02can't
07:03say that the Lebanese army has been passive or that the government has turned the other. We were
07:10aware of the fact that the Hezbollah was like a state within a state or a state within a non
07:17-state,
07:18as has been the case for many years in the past. But we were ready to remedy this and the
07:23army was
07:23ready to remedy this. Were we helped in order to do that? I'm not sure. We could have been helped
07:32if
07:32Israel has attacked less often the Lebanese territory during the past 15 months, or if the prisoners
07:42taken by Israel were released, or if Israel has shown some kind of appreciation of what has been done
07:52on the ground. But nothing of this happened. And we certainly do not rely on the Israelis to do
08:02our job. But we ask the Israelis and other countries to allow us to do our job more efficiently. And
08:13we ask in particular friendly countries to give a Lebanese army that has been the poor relative
08:21of the military establishment in the Middle East, to give this Lebanese army the means and munitions and
08:30and material it needs in order to implement that decision.
08:35Hassan Salami, thank you so much for joining us in France 24. We appreciate your time. We appreciate
08:39that you are there in Beirut where the shelling is still happening. So do stay safe, sir. Thank you for
08:44joining us, Hassan Salami, the Minister of Culture of Lebanon. Thank you once again.
08:49Thank you for joining us. Thank you.
08:50Thank you for joining us, obviously.
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