![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")
More than 100 victims of Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre filed a lawsuit in U.S. federal court today, alleging that a scandal-plagued U.N. agency has led a long-standing money-laundering operation to the financial benefit of the terror group.
The suit, filed in the District Court for the Southern District of New York, names as defendants the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and seven commissioners-general, deputy commissioners-general and a director, accusing them of participating in a decade-plus scheme of fraud and corruption.
“There is no pain in the world that compares to burying your children and grandchildren who were murdered and suffocated in their own home,” said Gadi and Reuma Kadem in a statement. “All that is left is to fight to hold those responsible for strengthening Hamas to account. UNRWA strengthened Hamas and transferred funds and financed the murders, acting as a full partner in the growth of Hamas terrorists. UNRWA and its directors are fully complicit in the murder of my children and family. ”
UNRWA, the Palestinian-only aid and social services agency, has long been accused of fomenting the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through its unique treatment and perpetuation of the Palestinian refugee situation, incitement to violence in its schools and its employees’ ties to terror organizations.
“The findings in this lawsuit demonstrate that UNRWA was aware of and actively participated in the diversion of funds earmarked to support the people of Gaza into channels that ensured those funds were used for terrorism and in violation of international law,” said Bijan Amini, one of the lead lawyers in the case. “UNRWA’s insistence that over a billion dollars in Gaza aid be distributed in U.S. cash that locals could not spend without going through Hamas moneychangers is one of the most damning pieces of new evidence presented in this case.”
The lawsuit accuses UNRWA of insisting that aid payments in Gaza be made in U.S. dollars rather than Israeli shekels, which is the local currency. The suit claims this practice is unique to Gaza, and did not apply to aid payments made to other Palestinians benefiting from UNRWA, including those in Judea and Samaria or Jordan. Nor, the suit says, does it apply to refugees in any other U.N. program, all of whom are handled outside the Palestinian sector by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Asked by JNS about the accuracy of the claim, an UNRWA spokeswoman said on Sunday morning that she did not have the information needed, but would check.
The office of António Guterres, the U.N. secretary-general, stated on Monday that “we are aware of press reports that a lawsuit has been filed in the United States against UNRWA and certain of its officials.”
“The U.N., including UNRWA, enjoys immunity from legal process, as do United Nations officials, including those serving with UNRWA,” the secretary-general’s office stated. “The United Nations will liaise with the United States authorities as necessary in this matter.”
The dollar-based payments, the suit says, require aid recipients to use Hamas’s moneychangers to convert them into usable shekels, diverting fees of 10% to 20% into Hamas’s coffers.
“This payment scheme reduced the real value of aid to Gaza residents by $2 million to 4 million per month and increased Hamas’s monthly revenue by that amount. Perhaps more significantly, it ensured a reliable supply of U.S. dollar currency into Hamas’s control each month, which was necessary to pay smugglers and arms dealers who do not accept shekels as payment,” read a statement announcing the lawsuit.
The lawsuit further alleges that Hamas “openly controlled 24 of 26 leadership positions in the UNRWA employee union,” and repeats Israeli government accusations that at least 10% of UNRWA employees were members of Hamas and more than 100 participated in the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks.
“UNRWA facilities and schools were used to store weapons and as entry points and supply for Hamas tunnels and bunkers. Hamas’s command and control center for the Oct. 7 attack was located directly beneath UNRWA’s headquarters in Gaza City, and used power and servers from that facility to coordinate terrorist movements during the attack,” reads the statement.
While 16 countries suspended funding to UNRWA after the allegations surfaced of employee participation in the Oct. 7 massacre, all but the United States, United Kingdom and New Zealand have since restored donations. The Israeli government has been largely uncooperative with and distrustful of the United Nations’ requests for additional information and evidence.
One of the three named plaintiffs in the lawsuit is Ditza Heiman, an 84-year-old grandmother taken captive from Kibbutz Nir Oz and released on Nov. 28 as part of a ceasefire and hostage/security prisoner exchange.
For the first time, Heiman’s name has been revealed as the elderly hostage who says she was held captive by an UNRWA teacher.
“The fact that Hamas controlled Gaza was not an excuse for UNRWA to hire and fund terrorists, but instead should have ensured UNRWA took extra precautions,” Heiman said in the statement announcing the lawsuit. “UNRWA knew it was hiring terrorists and that its funds and facilities were being used for violence, but UNRWA’s complicity in paying and empowering terrorists to teach and radicalize a generation of Gaza’s children was perhaps even more evil and tragic.”
The previously unnamed Heiman and her family had told media, under the condition of anonymity, that she was held alone by a father of 10 in the mouse-infested, unfinished attic of his house.
After her meals were whittled down to one small ration a day, the UNRWA teacher, according to a media report, started bringing Heiman UNRWA-branded energy bars and later delivered to her an UNRWA-branded notepad for writing.
According to Heiman, she learned of the man’s profession and employer from his daughter, who spoke English, on her final day in captivity.
Critics of UNRWA say a recent review of the agency’s neutrality and hiring practices was largely a pre-determined whitewash conducted by organizations that had already absolved UNRWA of accountability.
A separate U.N. investigation into UNRWA staffers’ participation in the event on Oct. 7 is ongoing, and the United Nations has not provided any information on its progress or findings thus far.