Hezbollah says it won't hand over weapons while Israeli troops remain in southern Lebanon

BEIRUT (AP) — The leader of Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group said on Friday that its fighters will not disarm as long as Israeli troops remain in southern Lebanon and the Israeli air force regularly violates Lebanese air space.

Naim Kassem addressed supporters in a speech broadcast on Hezbollah’s television station. Kassem took over Hezbollah after Israeli airstrikes killed longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah, his successor Hashem Safieddine and other top Hezbollah figures last year, decimating the group's leadership.

Kassem said Hezbollah had implemented its commitments related to the U.S.-brokered ceasefire that halted the fighting in Hezbollah’s latest, 14-month war with Israel.

Since the ceasefire went into effect in late November, Israeli airstrikes have killed scores of people in Lebanon including civilians and Hezbollah members. Israel says it’s targeting Hezbollah holdouts in southern Lebanon.

On Tuesday, the office of the U.N. high commissioner for human rights said that at least 71 civilians, including 14 women and nine children, have been killed by Israeli strikes in Lebanon since the ceasefire took effect.

Hezbollah launched its own attacks on Israel a day after the Israel-Hamas war erupted on Oct. 7, 2023 with the Palestinian militants’ attack on southern Israel, saying it was doing so to ease the pressure on Gaza by keeping part of the Israeli military busy along the northern Israeli border with Lebanon.

In response, Israeli troops pushed into Lebanon. The 14 months of the Hezbollah-Israel war killed more than 4,000 people in Lebanon and caused destruction that will take $11 billion to rebuild, according to the World Bank.

As part of the ceasefire, Hezbollah was to pull out from parts of southern Lebanon and give up its military positions and weapons south of the Litani River while Israeli forces were to pull back into Israel. The Lebanese army was to take over Hezbollah's positions and guarantee security in the south, along with the U.N. peacekeeping mission.

Israel withdrew much of its troops from southern Lebanon in February but kept five posts inside Lebanese territory in what Lebanon says is a violation of the ceasefire deal.

Last week, deputy U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East Morgan Ortagus visited Beirut and called on the Lebanese state to assert its control all over Lebanon — and not only in the south along the border with Israel south of the Litani River.

“We will not allow anyone to remove Hezbollah’s weapons,” Kassem said. “These weapons gave life and freedom to our people."

Kassem spoke hours after two separate Israeli drones killed two people in southern Lebanon. The Israeli military said it killed two Hezbollah members in the strikes.

“Does anyone expect us to discuss a national defense strategy as warplanes fly over our heads and there is occupation in south Lebanon,” Kassem asked. “These are not discussions. This is surrender. Let Israel withdraw first and stop its flights in the air.”

Lebanese army soldiers stand guard as workers use a crane to remove a charred car that was hit by an Israeli strike, in the southern coastal town of Ghazieh, Lebanon, Friday, April 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

Lebanese army soldiers inspect a charred car that was hit by an Israeli strike, in the southern coastal town of Ghazieh, Lebanon, Friday, April 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

Lebanese army members gather near a charred car that was hit by an Israeli strike, in the southern coastal town of Ghazieh, Lebanon, Friday, April 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

Lebanese army soldiers gather near a charred car that was hit by an Israeli strike, in the southern coastal town of Ghazieh, Lebanon, Friday, April 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

People gather near a charred car that was hit by an Israeli strike, in the southern coastal town of Ghazieh, Lebanon, Friday, April 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

When NBC carried the Kentucky Derby for the first time in 2001, the broadcast lasted only 90 minutes.

On Saturday, when it carries the Run for the Roses for the 25th time, 90 minutes wouldn’t be enough for all the feature stories that will run leading up to post time.

NBC Sports will present 12 1/2 hours of coverage across two days on NBC, USA Network and Peacock. There will be five hours for Friday’s Kentucky Oaks on USA Network and Peacock. Saturday’s coverage begins on USA Network at noon ET before moving to NBC at 2:30 p.m. while Peacock will stream all 7 1/2 hours.

“So much has changed since we first started in 2001. At that time, we thought 90 minutes to cover a two-minute race. How are we going to fill all this time? Now we are still trying to figure out how we’re going to get this story in and that story in because there are so many great stories to tell,” said Donna Brothers, the only member of the broadcast team involved with all 25 Derbys on NBC.

NBC has done five hours of coverage on the main network on Derby Day since 2018. Sam Flood, the executive producer and president of NBC Sports Production, said the true evolution behind adding more hours while making the coverage appeal to a cross-section of viewers began after he produced his first Derby in 2006.

“I remember getting done with the show, which I think was two hours. I kept thinking, we can do so much more,” Flood said. “There are so many assets here that should be showcased, and that’s when we started blowing it out, adding more hours and slowly shifting more and more hours on to NBC and off the cable platforms.”

The expansion has also included the Kentucky Oaks. It started airing on Bravo in 2009 before moving to the NBC Sports Network and then USA Network.

The Derby broadcast has evolved into one of the most diverse sports events that NBC does yearly and is on par with the Olympics, which it carries once every two years, and the Super Bowl, which it has once every four years.

It also might be the only place where a viewer can see fashion, recipes from one of the hosts of Bravo’s “Top Chef,” and race predictions from NBC News chief data analyst Steve Kornacki.

Mike Tirico, the host of NBC’s coverage since 2017, said doing the Derby served as good preparation for hosting the Olympics as well as a stint as a guest host on the “Today” show last week.

“My time doing the Derby helped me to do the ‘Today’ show last week, not vice versa,” he said. “This show is so cool. It goes from speed figures to fascinators. It goes from betting to bourbon. We cover it all in the five hours with a great team of people who dive in and take their space and own it. We all build towards the race. The audience does the same.”

Tirico succeeded Tom Hammond as host. Hammond, a University of Kentucky graduate, was a guiding force around NBC’s early coverage and introducing the sport’s most prominent personalities to viewers.

Lindsay Schanzer, the supervising producer of NBC’s coverage, said one of the advantages of having nearly 4 1/2 hours leading up to post time at 6:57 p.m. ET is the chance to focus on the stories of the 20 horses that will line up in the starting gate.

Among the stories planned are the return of trainer Bob Baffert — who served a three-year suspension after Medina Spirit failed a drug test — 89-year-old trainer D. Wayne Lukas and Michael McCarthy, the trainer of prerace favorite Journalism, whose family was displaced from home in Southern California due to the wildfires.

Because of the many different topics in the broadcast, Schanzer has an interesting approach in how she books the coverage with what she calls a colors document, where each element of coverage has its own color.

“I like to look at it from a broad perspective to make sure there’s not too much of one color in one area, and every color is kind of represented across the show so that if you’re watching it, you’re getting a little bit of a taste of everything,” she said. “One color could be a fashion element, one could be Kornacki’s insights, one could be an interview with a horseman. I try to look at it in a holistic way like that.”

The approach has certainly worked. Last year’s broadcast averaged 16.7 million viewers, the largest Derby audience since 1989. That included an average minute audience of 714,000 streaming on Peacock.

Overall, 11 of the past 15 Derbies held in May have averaged at least 15 million.

“We’ve had all kinds of things happen (since 2001), and that’s what’s so unique about the sport, but specifically about the Derby,” said Jon Miller, NBC Sports president of acquisitions and partnerships. “You have 20 horses that come into that gate and long shots that can pull off the upset. You have favorites, you have great ownership stories, and you have legendary trainers. Who knows who is going to surprise this year? But that’s what’s great about it.”

AP horse racing: https://apnews.com/hub/horse-racing and Derby coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/kentucky-derby

Horses workout at Churchill Downs Wednesday, April 30, 2025, in Louisville, Ky. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)