![Israel must continue to be able to deter Hezbollah, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar stressed on Wednesday, speaking amid efforts to reach a ceasefire with Iran's Lebanese terrorist proxy. "We need to keep the freedom to act if there will be violations. And we will have to act in time, before the problem will grow," the minister told a gathering of nearly 100 foreign ambassadors in Jerusalem, the Times of Israel reported. A deal to end more than a year of fighting on the northern border must be durable, Sa'ar said, saying Jerusalem “would like to reach an agreement that will stand the test of time." He added that a ceasefire would be an "opportunity" for Lebanon to regain its sovereignty after the Israeli military severely degraded the Iranian-backed group in recent months. He called for the Lebanese Armed Forces to be strengthened and urged the international community to invest more in the economically devastated country, which is drowning in debt following years of mismanagement and corruption. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz also emphasized on Wednesday the necessity for Jerusalem to be able to act against any Hezbollah threats that may arise after a ceasefire deal is implemented. “The condition for any political settlement in Lebanon is the preservation of the intelligence capability and the preservation of the [IDF’s] right to act and protect the citizens of Israel from Hezbollah,” Katz said. Meanwhile, U.S. special envoy Amos Hochstein remained in Beirut for a second day on Wednesday to discuss "technical details" of an American ceasefire proposal with Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, who heads the Hezbollah-allied Amal movement. President Joe Biden's point man in the Land of the Cedars announced he would travel to Israel on Wednesday night, speaking after he made "additional progress" in a second meeting with Berri. Hochstein was scheduled to meet with Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer shortly after his arrival, followed by a tête-à-tête with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the following day. “The meeting today built on the meeting yesterday, and made additional progress,” Hochstein said. “So I will travel from here in a couple hours to Israel to try to bring this to a close if we can.” The Biden envoy added that he will work with the incoming Trump administration on ceasefire efforts, saying that he has kept the president-elect's transition team informed of progress. Hochstein described as "very productive" his meetings with Lebanese officials on Tuesday. “We have a real opportunity to end the conflict, and now is the moment to decide. We are committed to doing everything we can to work with Lebanon and Israel to end this conflict,” Hochstein said at a press conference on Tuesday. Hochstein also met on Tuesday with Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati, and he was scheduled to meet with Lebanese Armed Forces commander Gen. Joseph Aoun. Mikati emphasized that Lebanon’s primary objectives are achieving a ceasefire and safeguarding its sovereignty. He highlighted the need to implement international resolutions and bolster the Lebanese Armed Forces in the southern part of the country. Lebanon delivered its written response to the latest U.S. proposal on Monday. According to Ali Hassan Khalil, an aide to Berri, the response included “comments” that were “presented in a positive atmosphere.” He did not provide details on the nature of the comments, saying only that they “affirm the precise adherence to [U.N. Security Council] Resolution 1701 with all its provisions,” according to Reuters. Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem said in a speech on Wednesday that the terrorist group had "read the ceasefire proposal. "We have our comments, and Nabih Berri has comments, and ours and the Lebanese government's comments are, Inshallah ['God willing'], identical," Qassem said. "We have decided not to discuss these ceasefire proposals or our comments in the media. All I will say is that Israeli is trying to obtain through negotiations what it couldn't through war." The terrorist leader vowed to “continue our efforts on the ground, whether the negotiations succeed or not. “We are confronting a savage enemy, and we will remain on the ground, no matter the cost, as we will also increase the cost for the enemy. We are facing Israeli human monsters supported by American human monsters,” threatened Qassem. Disarm and retreat Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 Second Lebanon War, stipulated that Hezbollah must disarm and retreat north of the Litani River, but was never enforced. The Litani lies some 20 miles from the Israel-Lebanon border. Its enforcement, along with Israeli freedom of operation in Lebanon should Hezbollah violate the terms of a ceasefire agreement, are the key sticking points in the current negotiations. Netanyahu emphasized during a speech in the Knesset plenum on Monday that Israel will not allow Hezbollah to “return to the state it was in on Oct. 6, 2023. “We will be required, in order to ensure our security in the north, to systematically carry out operations—not only against Hezbollah’s attacks, which could come. Even if there is a ceasefire, nobody can guarantee it will hold. So it’s not only our reaction, a preventive reaction, a reaction in the wake of attack but also the capacity to prevent Hezbollah from strengthening,” he said. Hezbollah has launched some 16,000 rockets, missiles and drones from Lebanon at Israel since joining the war in support of Hamas on Oct. 8, 2023, a day after the Gaza-based terrorist group’s massacre in southern Israel. More than 60,000 residents of northern Israel remain internally displaced due to the ongoing rocket and drone attacks from Lebanon. Seventy-six people in northern Israel have been killed by Hezbollah cross-border rocket, missile and drone attacks since the start of the war, including 31 soldiers and six foreign citizens, according to the latest data provided by the Prime Minister’s Office, updated on Sunday. In addition, 729 people have been wounded, including 497 civilians and 232 soldiers. Of these, 29 civilians and 37 soldiers were severely injured; 63 civilians and 38 soldiers were moderately injured and 405 civilians and 157 soldiers were lightly injured. Hezbollah’s leadership has been left in tatters following a series of targeted killings by Israel, including that of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut on Sept. 27. This was preceded by Israeli sabotage of Hezbollah communication devices that killed 39 people and wounded more than 3,400 members of the terrorist group. Israel has been waging a devastating aerial campaign against Hezbollah throughout Lebanon, including its stronghold of Dahieh south of Beirut. According to Israeli estimates, the terrorist group has lost most of its arsenal to the ongoing strikes. Then-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said in late October that Hezbollah had lost an estimated 80%-plus of its long-range rockets since the start of the war. Israel also continues to battle Hamas terrorists in Gaza. The terrorist group still holds 101 hostages in the Strip, 97 of whom were kidnapped on Oct. 7. Many of the captives are believed to be dead. Brazil summit Meanwhile, G20 leaders gathered in Rio de Janeiro for a summit put out a joint statement on Monday calling for “comprehensive” ceasefires in Gaza and Lebanon. The leaders of the world’s biggest economies called for U.S. proposals to end fighting in Gaza and free the hostages, and one for Lebanon “that enables citizens to return safely to their homes on both sides of the Blue Line.” The 13-point U.S. proposal presented to Lebanese officials on Nov. 14 includes a 60-day truce, during which Lebanon would redeploy its troops along the border. The proposal also calls for Moscow to prevent Hezbollah from resupplying itself via Syrian land routes. Hezbollah would retreat north of the Litani River, with the border area then being under control of the Lebanese Armed Forces, overseen by the United States and Britain. Israeli officials are emphasizing, however, that the Israel Defense Forces must retain freedom of operation in Lebanon to thwart attempts by Hezbollah to violate the agreement and rearm and reestablish itself. A senior Israeli diplomatic official told Israel Hayom on Saturday that the IDF will retain operational freedom to respond to any security threats from across the northern border, regardless of any diplomatic arrangements. However, a source close to Hezbollah told The Washington Post that the group’s “condition for progress remains clear: Israel must be prohibited from conducting operations within Lebanese territory.” Berri emphasized at the time that any ceasefire agreement must not include the ability for Israel to attack by land, sea or air, Channel 12 reported. “Otherwise, what’s the purpose of an agreement?” he remarked. Another sticking point is Lebanon’s objection to the United Kingdom and Germany monitoring the implementation of U.N. Resolution 1701. Beirut reportedly favors the United States and France. If the ceasefire efforts fail, there are plans in the works to expand ground operations in Lebanon, an Israeli military official told the Post. Israel’s Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer discussed the proposal with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump during a visit to his Florida estate earlier this month, as well as with senior Biden administration officials in Washington. Dermer also traveled to Russia to discuss the ceasefire proposal. Tehran is telling its Lebanese terrorist proxy Hezbollah that it supports ending the war against Israel, The New York Times reported over the weekend. Ali Larijani, senior adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, met with senior Lebanese officials in Beirut on Nov. 15 to discuss the matter. Two Iranians affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps told the Times that Larijani conveyed messages to Hezbollah from Khamenei that he supported the end of the war and that the regime would assist with rebuilding the terrorist group’s forces and recovering from the war.](https://jewishwebsite.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Gideon-Saar-1320x880-2-218x150.jpg "Sa’ar: Israel must be free to act against Hezbollah truce violations")
A day after two blasts—one of them an enormous—ripped through Beirut, causing untold destruction, it’s still not possible to grasp the true scope of the calamity, a former Israeli Military Intelligence chief has said.
Speaking by video conference to journalists, Maj. Gen. (res.) Amos Yadlin, who served as former deputy commander of the Israeli Air Force and is now executive director of the Institute for National Security Studies, noted that Israel has offered medical assistance to Lebanon. “This is a terrible, terrible disaster. The big question is how many people are missing. The numbers are between 1,000 to 4,000.”
Analyzing the incidents that led to the explosion, Yadlin said it “started from a small explosion at what looks like a fireworks storage [facility]. And then the big explosion came,” he said, citing the 2,700 tons of reported ammonium nitrate stored at a warehouse at the port’s dock.
Ammonium nitrate “is material used to develop explosives,” he said. “It is also good for agriculture, but the fact that it was there since 2014 is saying that it was not taken for agriculture. The purpose of this storage was for explosives.”
“Very much like his Iranian masters, [Nasrallah] failed operationally.”
He added that it cannot be proven at this stage that it was a Hezbollah warehouse. If, however, signs emerge that this is indeed the case, it would form a “very serious allegation against Hezbollah,” which could turn into significant political pressure on it to end its role as a military power in Lebanon and delegate that role to the official Lebanese military, he assessed.
Ammonium nitrate has been used before by Hezbollah operatives abroad in planning out a terror attack. In 2015, a Lebanese-Canadian man tied to Hezbollah was convicted in Cyprus after he was found in possession of 8.5 tons of ammonium nitrate in his basement. That same year, the Mossad told authorities in the U.K. of four properties in North West London that contained three tons of ammonium nitrate belonging to Hezbollah. Earlier this year, the Mossad again tipped off Germany on Hezbollah’s activities on its soil, including warehouses in the south of the country where Hezbollah stashed hundreds of kilograms of ammonium nitrate.
“This is another blow to the Lebanese state that was already [suffering] a huge crisis,” said Yadlin. The factors that created this crisis included severe economic, financial, political and social problems.
Even prior to the blast, tensions were rising in the country. In that context, he explained, “what is important is that Hezbollah is using civilian neighborhoods to store weapons. They use civilian neighborhoods as shields for their activity. There are elements in Lebanon and the international community calling on Hezbollah to stop hiding behind the excuse that it needs these weapons against Israel.”
Nuclear capability and hegemony in the Middle East
Yadlin pointed out that Israel hasn’t attacked Lebanon in 14 years, and that the two countries have “no real dispute” over borders. Even a disagreement over offshore gas-drilling rights in the Mediterranean Sea “was already brokered by the Americans.”
Hezbollah, he said, is looking for excuses to keep the conflict going with Israel. “This is a very good time for Lebanese to tell Hezbollah: ‘We have so many other problems, give us a break from your excuses for Iranian interests that running behind you.’ The issue starts with Iran sending advanced weapons to Hezbollah via Syria.”
“This is another blow to the Lebanese state that was already [suffering] a huge crisis.”
More broadly, the Iranian terror axis of which Hezbollah is part of is under great pressure, said Yadlin. Factors like America’s “maximum pressure” campaign on Tehran—added to economic dysfunction, collapsing oil prices, Israel’s campaign to roll back Iranian military entrenchment in Syria, the coronavirus pandemic, the recent assassination of Quds Force Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani—have all contributed to growing discontent among the general populace.
“The Iranians are continuing, despite all of the difficulties, with two strategic efforts: come as close as possible to nuclear capability and to have hegemony in the Middle East,” stated Yadlin.
So far, Iran has failed operationally to deter Israel, and Syria is focused on what remains of its civil war in Idlib, so Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah decided to step up and attempt to “revenge any Israeli activities in Syria if Hezbollah terrorists will be killed as well. This is what happened last week, and Nasrallah decided to act,” he summed up.
Nasrallah attempted to calibrate his actions so that they would on the one hand kill a few Israeli soldiers, but on the other avoid all-out war. “Very much like his Iranian masters, he failed operationally,” said Yadlin.
Now, in the aftermath of the Beirut explosion, Nasrallah has found his excuse to “remove this issue from the agenda, especially if this warehouse was a Hezbollah warehouse,” he said. “And there are already a lot of voices in Lebanon that blame Hezbollah for the financial difficulties. There are new sanctions on Lebanon because of Hezbollah. The banking system is collapsing because of Hezbollah. Every Lebanese knows that Hezbollah is the strongest military power in Lebanon with a lot of political influence.”
With all of these multiple crises in Lebanon, joined by the latest disaster in Beirut, some Lebanese civilians will likely be thinking “why do they need another dimension of destruction that will come from Nasrallah attacking Israel? So I think he will find a ladder to come down from the tree,” said Yadlin.
Asked whether the Beirut disaster will set the stage for the International Monetary Fund to provide major assistance to Lebanon, Yadlin said that remains unclear. “It could on the one hand say, ‘Let’s put aside everything and help Lebanon.’ On the other hand … [the blast] may help those who say Hezbollah is the problem, and that this was a Hezbollah warehouse. The IMF could say ‘until you move Hezbollah away from its positions that they took in Lebanon, we are not helping you despite the disaster.’ ”