BEIRUT: Israel gave the United States a document last week with its conditions for a diplomatic solution to end the war in Lebanon, Axios reported on Sunday, citing two US officials and two Israeli officials.
Israel has demanded its IDF forces be allowed to engage in “active enforcement” to make sure Hezbollah doesn’t rearm and rebuild its military infrastructure close to the border, Axios reported, citing an Israeli official.
Israel also demanded its air force have freedom of operation in Lebanese air space, the report added.
A US official told Axios it was highly unlikely that Lebanon and the international community would agree to Israel’s conditions.
The White House could not be immediately reached outside regular business hours. The US State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The embassies of Israel and Lebanon in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
White House special envoy Amos Hochstein is visiting Beirut on Monday to discuss a diplomatic solution to the conflict, the report added.
Israel gives the US its demands for ending war in Lebanon, Axios reports
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Israel gives the US its demands for ending war in Lebanon, Axios reports
- Israel demanded its air force have freedom of operation in Lebanese air space
Iran rejects Lebanon’s accusation of interference in its affairs: FM spokesman
On Thursday, France’s Le Figaro quoted Iran’s Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf as saying that his government was ready to negotiate the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which is seen as a precondition for a ceasefire in the ongoing war between Israel and the Lebanese Hezbollah group, an ally of Iran.
The resolution calls for the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers to be the only forces deployed to southern Lebanon.
In a rare rebuke of Tehran, Mikati accused it of “blatant interference in Lebanese affairs and an attempt to establish an unacceptable guardianship over Lebanon.”
“Iran has never had any intention or (taken any) action that could be suspected of interfering in the internal affairs of Lebanon,” Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said during a weekly news conference.
“We hold discussions with any country that has an initiative and a proposal to end the crimes and aggression against Lebanon and the genocide in Gaza,” said Baghaei, adding that there had been a “misunderstanding” regarding Ghalibaf’s reported remarks.
Iran has in recent days intensified diplomatic efforts, with Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi visiting multiple countries in the region to push for ceasefires in Lebanon and Gaza as well as ways to contain the conflicts.
Iran complains to UN nuclear watchdog about Israeli threats against its nuclear sites
- Israel has vowed to attack Iran in retaliation for a volley of Iranian missiles launched on Oct. 1
DUBAI: Iran has written to the UN nuclear watchdog to complain about Israel’s threats against its nuclear sites, foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said on Monday at a weekly news conference.
Israel has vowed to attack Iran in retaliation for a volley of Iranian missiles launched on Oct. 1, leading to widespread speculation that Iran’s nuclear sites could be among Israel’s targets.
“Threats to attack nuclear sites are against UN resolutions.... and are condemned... we have sent a letter about it to... the UN nuclear watchdog,” Baghaei said in the televised news conference.
Separately, Baghaei said Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi would travel to Bahrain and Kuwait on Monday as part of Iran’s efforts to curb regional tensions.
Iran launched its Oct. 1 missile attack to retaliate against Israeli strikes targeting its allies Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza. It was the second Iranian attack on Israel this year; Israel responded to the first missile volley in April with an air strike on an air defense site in central Iran.
WHO to evacuate 1,000 Gazan women, children for urgent medical care
- Rik Peeperkorn, WHO representative in the occupied Palestinian territories, said in May that around 10,000 people needed evacuating from Gaza for urgent medical care
COPENHAGEN: Up to 1,000 women and children needing medical care will shortly be evacuated from Gaza to Europe, the head of the World Health Organization’s Europe branch said in comments published on Monday.
Israel, which is besieging the war-devastated Palestinian territory, “is committed to 1,000 more medical evacuations within the next months to the European Union,” Hans Kluge said in an interview with AFP.
He said the evacuations would be facilitated by the WHO — the United Nations’ health agency — and the European countries involved.
On Thursday, UN investigators said Israel was deliberately targeting health facilities in Gaza, and killing and torturing medical personnel there, accusing the country of “crimes against humanity.”
Rik Peeperkorn, WHO representative in the occupied Palestinian territories, said in May that around 10,000 people needed evacuating from Gaza for urgent medical care.
The WHO Europe has already facilitated 600 medical evacuations from Gaza to seven European countries since the latest war began there in October 2023.
“This would never have happened if we did not keep the dialogue (open),” Kluge said.
“The same (is true) for Ukraine,” he added. “I keep the dialogue (open) with all partners.
“Now, 15,000 HIV-AIDS patients in Donbas, the occupied territories (of Ukraine), are getting HIV-AIDS medications,” the 55-year-old Belgian said in English, stressing the importance of “not politicizing health.”
“The most important medicine is peace,” he said, noting that health care workers had to be allowed to do their jobs in conflict zones.
Around 2,000 attacks have been registered on health centers in Ukraine since Russia’s invasion in February 2022, according to the WHO
“There may be a kind of acceptance almost but this should cause outrage every single time,” he said.
“We will always continue to condemn this in the strongest possible terms.”
Kluge expressed concern ahead of Ukraine’s third winter of war.
“Eighty percent of the civilian energy grid is damaged or destroyed. We saw it in the hospitals, surgeons operating with a lamp on their heads,” he said.
“It will be a very, very tough” winter.
Despite strains on Europe’s health care systems, he said the 53 countries that make up the WHO European region — which includes central Asian countries — were able to come together to prepare for future pandemics.
“In Europe, we did our homework,” he said.
“What we need is a pandemic treaty globally, because even if we do our share, we’re never going to stop bugs entering our continent.”
A European strategy for pandemics is due to be presented on October 31.
At the same time, the WHO is urging its members to “manage and prepare for the next crisis, while ensuring continuation of essential basic health services” in order to avoid another “rupture” like that which occurred during the Covid pandemic.
Ensuring the security of national health care systems is crucial and should be a priority, he said.
“A minimum of 25 out of 53 countries during the past five years had at least one big health emergency event big enough to test the country’s security,” he said.
The pandemic has left its mark on Europeans, which Kluge hopes to erase during his next mandate.
“The Covid-19 pandemic set us back two years on non-communicable diseases,” he said, requiring countries to double down on diagnosing and treating multidrug resistant tuberculosis, testing for uterus and cervical cancer, and vaccinations.
In addition, Kluge said he also wanted to address worrying trends, such as the health of young people and growing inequalities between men and women.
“It’s very clear. We see that the lockdowns during Covid-19 led to a 25-percent increase in anxiety and depression orders,” he lamented.
“Twenty-six percent of the women between 15 and 49 years in my region report, at least one time in their lifetime experienced intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence,” he said.
Kluge has headed the WHO Europe since February 2020 and is expected to be re-elected at the end of October.
US says THAAD anti-missile system is ‘in place’ in Israel
- Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin declined to say whether it was operational
- THAAD’s deployment, along with about 100 US soldiers, was meant to help defend Israel
WASHINGTON: The US military has rushed its advanced anti-missile system to Israel and it is now “in place,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said.
THAAD, or the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, is a critical part of the US military’s layered air defense systems and adds to Israel’s already formidable anti-missile defenses.
“The THAAD system is in place,” Austin said, speaking to reporters before his arrival in Ukraine on Monday.
He declined to say whether it was operational, but added: “We have the ability to put it into operation very quickly and we’re on pace with our expectations.”
President Joe Biden said the THAAD’s deployment, along with about 100 US soldiers, was meant to help defend Israel, which is weighing an expected retaliation against Iran after Tehran fired more than 180 missiles at Israel on Oct 1.
The United States has been urging Israel to calibrate its response to avoid triggering a broader war in the Middle East, officials say, with Biden publicly voicing his opposition to an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear sites and his concerns about a strike on its energy infrastructure.
Responding to questions from reporters, Biden said last week he had a good understanding of when and how Israel would attack Iran. But he also said he saw an opportunity to end the two enemies’ back-and-forth strikes.
Austin was cautious.
“It’s hard to say exactly what that (Israel’s) strike will look like,” Austin told reporters.
“At the end of the day, that’s an Israeli decision, and whether or not the Israelis believe it’s proportional and how the Iranians perceive it, I mean those may be two different things.”
“We’re going to do — continue to do — everything we can ... to dial down the tensions and hopefully get both parties to begin to de-escalate. So, we’ll see what happens,” he added.
Frankly Speaking: Is it over for Hezbollah?
- Middle East Institute Senior Fellow Firas Maksad says Lebanese militia wagered nation’s fate on Gaza war’s outcome
- Says ongoing Israel-Hezbollah war’s domestic toll on country still suffering from financial collapse is “tremendous“
DUBAI: Lebanon is heading for an extended conflict as Israel’s ground invasion enters its fourth week, raising concerns of deeper regional instability. Sounding this warning on the Arab News current affairs show “Frankly Speaking,” Firas Maksad, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, said the fighting could last far longer than initially anticipated.
“Unfortunately, we are looking at weeks, maybe months, of conflict ahead,” he said.
The clashes between Israeli forces and the Iran-backed Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah have destabilized a country already grappling with economic collapse and political dysfunction.
Despite suffering heavy losses, particularly among its leadership, Hezbollah is far from defeated. “It’s certainly not game over. Hezbollah has been significantly weakened. It’s on its back foot,” Maksad said. “Hezbollah is fighting in a more decentralized way right now. We see that on the border. Their fighters are still … putting up a fight there.”
Israel sent troops and tanks into southern Lebanon on Oct. 1 in an escalation of the Israel-Hezbollah conflict, a spillover from the Israel-Hamas war that has been raging since Oct. 7 last year in Gaza.
It followed a series of major attacks on Hezbollah in September that degraded its capabilities and devastated its leadership, beginning with explosions of its communication devices.
This was followed by an Israeli aerial bombing campaign against Hezbollah throughout Lebanon, culminating in the killing of Hassan Nasrallah, the militia’s firebrand leader, in an airstrike in Dahiyeh, south of Beirut, on Sept. 7.
According to Maksad, Hezbollah’s fragmented central command has left it increasingly reliant on Iranian support. “Hezbollah’s central command is increasingly likely to come under direct Iranian management and control of the IRGC, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards,” he told Katie Jensen, the host of “Frankly Speaking.”
“Nasrallah had a margin of maneuver because of his role and stature in the community but also at a regional level, given the group’s involvement in Syria, Iraq, Yemen. That’s now gone. That very much then opens the way for more direct Iranian control, commanding control of Hezbollah in the months ahead.”
Maksad said the general sentiment in Lebanon, and even among Hezbollah’s own support base, is that the Iranian level of support has been at the very least disappointing.
“Public sentiment is one thing and the reality is sometimes another. Iran has sort of always showed some level of support to Hezbollah but has not been willing to stick its neck on the line, so to speak,” he said.
“It fights through its Arab proxies. It has a very clear aversion to be directly involved in a conflict with Israel because of its technological and military inferiority.”
Maksad highlighted the dire humanitarian situation in Lebanon, pointing to the more than one million internally displaced people who have fled from Hezbollah-controlled areas in southern Lebanon.
“About one-quarter of the population is under evacuation orders from the Israeli military,” he said. “The domestic toll for a relatively weak country suffering still from the weight of an unprecedented economic collapse in 2019, where most people lost their life savings in the banks, is tremendous.”
Maksad said the displacement has heightened sectarian tensions, as those displaced from pro-Hezbollah areas have moved into regions less sympathetic to the group.
“It does not bode well longer term for Lebanon, and the longer that this conflict drags, the more we have to (be concerned) about the bubbling of tensions and the instability that that might result in,” he said.
“Hezbollah has essentially wagered the country’s fate on (the outcome of the war) in Gaza and the fate of Hamas and its leaders,” he said.
Maksad also discussed the broader geopolitical implications of the conflict, suggesting that Israel is unlikely to engage in a long-term occupation of southern Lebanon.
“The Israelis fully understand the disadvantages of a lengthy occupation,” he said, recalling the heavy toll it took on the Israeli military when they last occupied Lebanon, a presence that ended in 2000.
“What I keep hearing is that Israel is looking to mop up Hezbollah infrastructure, tunnels and otherwise along the border, perhaps maybe even occupy, for a short period of time, the key villages, because the topography of south Lebanon is such that so many of these border villages are overlooking Israel and they want to take the higher ground.”
Having said that, Maksad predicted that Israel would pursue a diplomatic process, possibly through a new security arrangement based on UN Security Council Resolution 1701, after dealing with Hezbollah’s infrastructure.
Hezbollah’s alignment with the cause of Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups has alienated significant segments of the Lebanese population, further straining the country’s already delicate sectarian fabric. The political leadership in Lebanon is consequently under immense pressure.
Maksad views Nabih Berri, the Shiite speaker of Lebanon’s parliament, as a crucial player in mediating the crisis. However, at 86 years old, his ability to navigate such a complex situation is in question.
“He can’t do it alone,” Maksad said, noting that other key figures, such as Druze leader Walid Jumblatt and Christian political leader Samir Geagea, will need to play constructive roles too. While acknowledging that Najib Mikati, the caretaker prime minister, is also a key player, he noted that since the assassination in 2005 of Rafik Hariri, the former prime minister, “there’s been a void in the Sunni community and it’s been hard to replace that.”
Maksad remarked that Berri, Jumblatt and Geagea were all around during the civil war in the 1980s and are still active players on the Lebanese political scene.
“They have long memories. They remember in 1982 when (Israel’s defense minister) Ariel Sharon initially announced a limited operation into Lebanon and then ended up invading all the way to Beirut, upending the political system, facilitating the election of a pro-Western president,” he said.
But very quickly Iran and Syria launched their comeback, assassinated Bachir Gemayel, the president at the time, and by 1985 had pushed the Israelis all the way back to the south. “Iran and Hezbollah have time … they tend to be persistent and they have strategic patience,” Maksad said. “Berri and others remember that. So, they’re going to be moving very slowly, and they’re going to be taking their cues from the regional capitals of influence.”
Recent developments in the Middle East, particularly the killing by Israel on Oct. 16 of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in Gaza, represent what Maksad describes as “a potential fork in the road.”
The killing could either escalate tensions across the region or serve as a turning point, allowing Israel to seek a diplomatic solution, according to Maksad.
“It can open up a diplomatic process where maybe Netanyahu can then reclaim the mantle of ‘Mr. Security,’ having killed Sinwar, and then begin to seriously negotiate a swap that would see the Israeli hostages released. And we all know that a ceasefire in Lebanon was premised on a diplomatic outcome in a ceasefire in Gaza. And, then, arguably, Lebanon can begin to move in that direction,” he said.
However, Iran is on “a completely separate track” and the Middle East could be in the midst of a “multi-stage conflict.”
Maksad added: “Once we get the past the Nov. 5 (US election) day, maybe Netanyahu will have a much freer hand for a second round of attacks that can then maybe take a toll on (Iran’s) nuclear infrastructure and the oil facilities in Iran. And then that opens up a Pandora’s box. So, we’re continuing to be in a very uncertain period for not only Gaza and Lebanon, but for Iran and the region at large.”
Discussing the stances of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states on the Middle East conflicts, Maksad said that these countries are understandably hedging their foreign policy priorities and relations.
“There’s been questions in recent years about the US security commitment to the GCC region, given an increasingly isolationist trend in the US, and talk about ending forever wars,” he said.
“That has rightfully caused countries like Saudi Arabia and others to want to diversify their foreign policy options. I think this is part of a broader strategic approach that the Kingdom has taken. I don’t see any significant changes yet, except that the war in Gaza and now Lebanon, the longer that drags on, the less likely that we’re going to see any progress on normalization with Israel.”
