News - Middle East: A senior official from the Lebanese Hezbollah resistance movement has censured Saudi Arabia’s back-channel attempts to normalize diplomatic relations with Israel, emphasizing that the establishment of ties between Riyadh and Tel Aviv regimes will constitute a direct threat to Lebanon.

“Resistance is a strategic necessity to deter the [Israeli] enemy and support the country, its dignity and wealth. Close relations between Saudi Arabia and the Zionist regime pose a direct threat to Lebanon, Palestine, Syria as well as all honorable nations,” Sheikh Nabil Qaouk, the deputy chief of Hezbollah's executive council, said at a ceremony in the southern Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil on Monday.

Back on May 30, Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said the Tel Aviv regime is coordinating with the United States and Persian Gulf nations on a process to normalize and establish full diplomatic ties with Saudi Arabia.

“We believe that it is possible to have a normalization process with Saudi Arabia. It’s in our interest,” Lapid told Army Radio.

“We’ve already said that this is the next step after the [so-called] Abraham Accords to talk about a long and careful process,” he added, referring to the 2020 normalization deals that Israel reached with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan under former US president Donald Trump.