00:00After another round of negotiations, Israel and Lebanon have agreed to implement a ceasefire
00:05contingent on a cessation of Hezbollah fire and the removal of Hezbollah operatives from
00:11southern Lebanon. It comes as Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Arachi, says the US-Israel war
00:16with Iran will only end when it also ends in Lebanon. For The View from Beirut, we're joined
00:22now by Ghassan Salami, a huge academic and political figure in Lebanon, currently serving
00:27as the Minister of Culture. Good morning, Minister. Thank you so much for joining us here this
00:31morning. So first question, the obvious one, what is your reaction to this agreement? Is it a genuine
00:36breakthrough or just another temporary pause in the fighting? We hope it's genuine. We had the
00:43ceasefire already on April the 16th. That was not implemented. So now the proof of the genuine
00:51nature of this new agreement is in its implementation. And therefore, the agreement is still fresh a few
01:00hours old. So it's probably too early to decide how serious it is. But we certainly take it seriously.
01:08And that's the problem. The previous ceasefire did not work, with many calling it just an armed
01:13truce. It was not even a truce. I mean, hundreds of people have been killed during the six weeks,
01:21the six past weeks after the announcement of the latest or penultimate ceasefire agreement. This new
01:30one has a direct commitment by the mediator, that is the United States. And it has a number of points
01:39that need to be implemented on the ground. We need also to have the two governments implementing it,
01:48each on its side. We are trying, we will be trying to implement our side of the agreement. And we
01:55hope
01:55that on the other side, where we hear some ministers in the Israeli cabinet already refusing the agreement,
02:03which is not very helpful. And we need also to have a common interpretation of the various paragraphs
02:14in the agreement. And I hope that some of the sort of far-fetched interpretations I heard this morning
02:22from the Israeli prime minister and the minister of defense are only for public consumption, not
02:29their real position. And of course, there's tension, isn't there, between President Trump and Benjamin
02:35Netanyahu, and then Lebanon. You're stuck right in the middle.
02:40We are, we are. But without American pressure, we were not expecting the Israeli government to move
02:48forward towards such agreement. So it is under American sustained pressure that we can expect
02:57a real implementation this time. And will Hezbollah comply with the terms, do you think?
03:03They have been silent so far, but we expect them to express their position during the day.
03:11Because it's true that the agreement calls for ceasefire on both sides and for the withdrawal of Hezbollah
03:19fighters from south of the Lithuania. We are expecting their reaction during the day.
03:25And just describe the damage done so far by Israel. The last time we spoke here on Europe today,
03:30you described it as an incursion.
03:34That's how they put it. But this incursion has been bloody.
03:40And as Minister of Culture, I should say that it also destroyed 60 villages entirely, flattened out.
03:50And a number of very important heritage positions have been also hit, including the Chateau du Beaufort,
04:00to which Lebanese are very attached, not to mention the Chama position, which is a very important religious
04:13position in south Lebanon. So we hope that this time implementation will be serious.
04:20We are going to implement the government side of the agreement.
04:26We hope that we have a clear answer from Hezbollah during the day. And we hope that the Israelis don't
04:35over-interpret what's in it in a way that becomes unacceptable to us.
Comments