Raï: Disarm Hezbollah, protect the South

Maronite Patriarch Béchara Raï raised the stakes Sunday, declaring that southern Lebanon "is not a bargaining chip." In his Sunday homily in Mayfouk, in the Jbeil district, the cardinal called for the "protection" of the region, insisting that such protection "begins with the state holding a monopoly on weapons », a thinly veiled call for Hezbollah's disarmament.

For Raï, cited by the al-Markaziya news agency, the south remains "Lebanese land," whose residents "have the right to security, life, stability and to return to their villages and their land." Its protection, he stressed, "is a national responsibility," since "what strikes the south strikes all of Lebanon."

Cautious backing for negotiations with Israel

The patriarch reaffirmed his support for the negotiation process with Israel, which has stalled for weeks, arguing that "Lebanon fulfills its mission through dialogue and the defense of peoples' rights, without itself becoming the theater of conflicts that go beyond it." 

He said he backed "any serious negotiation that protects Lebanon, spares it war, allows for [Israeli] withdrawal, and preserves rights, sovereignty, security and stability."

Without naming the group, Raï took direct aim at Hezbollah: "The state that bears responsibility for protecting the Lebanese and their territory must be the one that holds decision-making power," he said, adding that "one and the same country cannot sustainably live with parallel decisions or multiple authorities on matters of sovereignty." 

The remark was widely read as a reference to the Shiite party's unilateral decisions to open "support fronts, first for Gaza in October 2023, then for Iran in March 2026.