Media Report 16.4.25
ISRAEL-PALESTINE MEDIA REPORT
16.4.25
US must act on killings
The Age | Letters | 16 April 2025
Since when did children’s playgrounds, schools and places of worship become legitimate military targets for Russian and Israeli drones to kill and maim unsuspecting Ukrainians and Palestinians, many of them women and children? Dismissing such war crimes as a “mistake” by President Trump is not good enough. Whatever leverage the US can apply to the Israeli and Russian leadership is long overdue. Only then can Trump’s repeated boast to stop the killing be achieved.
Nick Toovey, Beaumaris
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Standing against Israel
Sydney Morning Herald | Letters | 16 April 2025
The Netanyahu government tries to convince the world that to support them is to support Judaism, and to oppose them is to oppose Judaism. But Israel has an opposition that vocally opposes his coalition of right wingers. Hence, many Jews in Israel could be seen as antisemites as they want to live in peace with their neighbours. I therefore applaud Harvard University for its stance (“Harvard refuses to surrender independence after Trump threat”, April 15). Bending the knee to Donald Trump is bowing to authoritarianism. Standing against the massacres in Palestine doesn’t mean you are a Jew hater, it means you are a peacemaker – which is what American Christians claim to be.
David Neilson, Araluen (NT)
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Netanyahu and Macron speak days after Israeli PM son’s social media spray
ABC | Matthew Doran | 16 April 2025
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-04-16/netanyahu-and-macron-speak-palestinian-statehood/105181024
- Emmanuel Macron and Benjamin Netanyahu have spoken for the first time since the French President suggested France could take the step of recognising a Palestinian state later this year.
- Last week, Mr Netanyahu’s son Yair hit out at Mr Macron’s stance, posting “screw you” on social media platform X.
- Mr Netanyahu said recognition of a Palestinian state would be a “huge reward for terrorism”, while Mr Macron said the demilitarisation of Hamas in Gaza remained a priority.
Emmanuel Macron and Benjamin Netanyahu have spoken directly for the first time since the French President suggested his country could recognise a Palestinian state this year — comments which prompted a fiery response from the Israeli leader’s son.
In a phone call on Tuesday, Mr Macron said he reiterated support for “the security of Israel and its people” and said the release of all Israeli hostages held by Hamas and the demilitarisation of the group remained his priority.
But the President also insisted a ceasefire was needed in Gaza and called for humanitarian aid to flow once more — something Israel has blocked for more than a month, in a bid to pressure Hamas.
“The ordeal suffered by the civilian population of Gaza must end,” he posted on social media platform X.
“I hope that the next few hours will allow such a decision and the release of other hostages.
Ceasefire, release of all hostages, humanitarian aid, and finally reopening the prospect of a two-state political solution.”
Late last week Mr Macron said France could take the step of recognising a Palestinian state at a United Nations conference in June, during a television interview following an official trip to Egypt.
France, like Australia, has maintained a policy of working towards a ‘two-state solution’ to bring peace to the Middle East, but has not gone so far as to formally recognise a Palestinian state. Neither has Australia.
Mr Macron said France’s position was for “a Palestinian state without Hamas.”
“I support the legitimate right of Palestinians to a state and to peace, just as I support the right of Israelis to live in peace and security, both recognised by their neighbours.”
The French president’s comments prompted Benjamin Netanyahu’s son Yair.
“Screw you,” he posted on X on Saturday, before calling for the independence of the overseas territories of New Caledonia and French Polynesia.
Mr Netanyahu had earlier criticised his son’s language, but agreed with his point — and reiterated the position in his phone call on Tuesday.
“The prime minister expressed strong opposition to the establishment of a Palestinian state, saying that this would constitute a huge reward for terrorism,” Mr Netanyahu’s office said in a statement.
“The prime minister reminded the French president that to date, no Palestinian official — including in the Palestinian Authority — has condemned the October 7 massacre, and that in the Palestinian Authority their children are being educated to destroy Israel and financial rewards are being given to murderers of Jews.
“The prime minister told the French President that a Palestinian state established minutes away from Israeli cities would be a stronghold of Iranian terrorism, and that a vast majority of the Israeli public is resolutely opposed to this — and this is also his consistent and long-standing policy.”
Mr Macron had also discussed the issue with the President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas earlier in the week, floating the idea of reforming the PA as part of any peace process in Gaza.
In total, 147 of the 193 UN Member states recognise Palestinian statehood — 10 have done so in recent months, since the war in Gaza began.
None of the G7 countries, including the United States, United Kingdom and Germany recognise Palestine.
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One person killed and several wounded in Israeli attack on Gaza hospital
Airstrike prompts UN warning that humanitarian crisis is at its worst since fighting broke out 18 months ago
The Guardian | Hannah Ellis-Petersen & Malak A Tantesh | 16 April 2025
One person has been killed in an Israeli missile strike on a hospital in Gaza, just as the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was making a visit to the war-torn territory.
The attack on Tuesday occurred two days after another major hospital was targeted, fuelling warnings from the UN that the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is now the worst it has been since conflict began.
According to medical staff, the latest strike hit the entrance to the Kuwaiti field hospital in al-Muwasi, near the city of Khan Younis. One security guard died and nine medics were wounded.
Hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians are living in the area, mostly in ragged makeshift tents alongside sand dunes. They left their homes after Israeli forces resumed conflict and seized swathes of southern Gaza, including Rafah City, which Palestinians are banned from entering.
On Tuesday, Netanyahu made a rare visit to Gaza. Israeli forces have continued their air and ground offensive in the territory since the collapse of the ceasefire in March. The visit was confirmed by the prime minister’s office, who said he had visited troops in northern Gaza.
Just two days previously, an Israeli missile partly destroyed al-Ahli hospital, which was the only facility still providing critical care in northern Gaza. Doctors said the blasts had left the hospital barely operational and unable to carry out surgeries or accept patients.
António Guterres, the UN secretary general, said he was “deeply alarmed” by the attack, and stressed that hospitals were protected under international humanitarian law.
Israel has repeatedly targeted hospitals in Gaza over the past 18 months, alleging that they are used by Hamas to conceal terrorist activities. Israeli forces claimed al-Ahli was being used as a “command and control” centre by Hamas, an allegation the group denied. Paramedics carrying out rescue operations in Gaza have also been targeted.
Doctors working in Gaza warned that the situation for provision of medical care was at breaking point. Dr Mohammad Zahir, an emergency doctor at Indonesia hospital, said that if the aid blockade continued, severely ill children, cancer and kidney patients would soon die.
“We are living through a severe crisis alongside the broader humanitarian catastrophe,” said Zahir. “Inside the hospital, there is not only a lack of resources, but a massive shortage of essential medicines and medical supplies. There is also a shortage of ambulances, medications for chronic illnesses and cancer patients, surgical supplies, and even hospital beds – all due to the ongoing closure of the border crossings.”
The UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs said the situation in Gaza was “likely the worst it has been in the 18 months since the outbreak of hostilities”.
Since the collapse of the ceasefire with Hamas, Israel has blocked all aid to the territory since 2 March, resulting in critical shortages of food, water, fuel and medicine. Staff at Nasser hospital, one of the largest in Gaza – which is only partially functional after being hit in an airstrike last month – reported running out of gauze and burn creams this week.
It is the longest period that Israel has denied aid to Gaza. Human rights groups said the tactic – meant to put pressure on Hamas to releasing the remaining hostages it holds – amounted to a war crime.
Raeda Hijazi, living in a tent in the humanitarian zone in western Gaza with her four children, said they regularly survived only on salt and bread and had no choice but to drink contaminated water.
“There is no fuel to purify or pump water, and even the available food is contaminated,” she said. “Vegetables are completely unaffordable. I cook using burning plastic, even though I know it contains carcinogenic substances, but there’s no alternative. Insects are everywhere in the tents due to the garbage accumulating in the streets. Words are not enough to describe the suffering.”
Khetam abu Ouda, 49, living in Abasan al-Kabira, east of Khan Younis, said he and his family had been displaced 20 times since the start of the war. They recently returned to the rubble of their home but were sharing it with 30 other displaced people and feared that as water was running out, they would soon have to move again. He said said aid groups were no longer distributing food.
“The closure of crossings will lead to a slow and gradual death for the people here unless a radical solution is reached and the war is stopped,” said Ouda.
Israel has also resumed its airstrikes and ground operations in Gaza, displacing about 400,000 people and leading to a surge in civilian casualties, with 1,600 killed since March alone.
Speaking to Yedioth Ahronoth, an Israeli newspaper, an unnamed security official claimed the strategy was working and would force Hamas to agree to a deal on the hostages.
“The military pressure is having an impact,” said the official. “They have a shortage of gas and the food and the fuel will run out in a few weeks. The big achievement of the residents’ return to the northern Gaza Strip has been erased. That’s rattled them.”
Pressure has been mounting on Netanyahu’s government to secure the release of the remaining 58 hostages in Gaza, 24 of whom are believed to be alive. Thousands of former and reservist soldiers, as well as over 250 former Mossad agents, gave their backing to a letter calling for an end to the war, accusing Netanyahu of putting the lives of the hostages at risk for his own political gain.
As Israel launched more missiles in Gaza on Tuesday, a Hamas armed wing spokesperson said on Telegram that they had lost contact with the group holding Israeli-American hostage Edan Alexander, who has been held captive in Gaza for more than 550 days, after a “direct strike” on his location.
Alexander had appeared alive and agitated in a Hamas propaganda video released over the weekend in which he accused the “disgusting Israeli government” of deserting him and said he was “collapsing mentally and physically”.
Reports emerged this week that Israel had put forward a ceasefire deal with Hamas that included releasing half of the living hostages. However, on Tuesday a Palestinian source told the BBC that Hamas had rejected the deal as it did not include a commitment to end the war or withdraw IDF forces from Gaza.
Israeli’s offensive in response to the attacks by Hamas on southern Israel on 7 October 2023 has now claimed 51,000 lives, according to the Gaza health ministry. The count does not differentiate between civilians or combatants but women and children make up more than half of the dead.
This month, a group of UN experts said Israel’s actions in Gaza were leading to the “destruction of Palestinian life”.
“If they are not killed by bombs or bullets, they slowly suffocate for lack of basic means of survival,” they said. “The only difference is the means and speed of death.”
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Israeli PM Netanyahu visits Gaza Strip, his office says
Canberra Times / AAP | 16 April 2025
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has visited the Gaza Strip’s north, his office says without providing further information, as the Israeli offensive in the enclave continues.
The reason for his visit to the embattled Palestinian territory were not initially disclosed.
According to Israeli media, he was visiting Israeli soldiers there.
Netanyahu has previously entered the Gaza Strip a handful of times during the war.
He last visited the blockaded coastal strip in July.
At that time he also paid an unannounced visit to Israeli soldiers in the southern Gaza Strip.
The visit comes as Israel’s longest-serving prime minister faces duelling, possibly incompatible pressures: families of the Israeli hostages want him to cut a deal with Hamas to free them while his coalition partners want to continue the war with the aim of annihilating the militant group.
Israeli troops are currently working to expand a so-called “security zone” in the north of the Gaza Strip.
Defence Minister Israel Katz is threatening to permanently occupy parts of the Gaza Strip.
According to the Israeli government, this is also intended to increase pressure on the Palestinian Islamist Hamas movement to release the remaining hostages.
The trigger for the Gaza Strip war was an unprecedented massacre carried out by Hamas and other militants on October 7, 2023, in southern Israel.
Israeli officials say that their offensive will continue until the remaining 59 hostages are freed and the Gaza Strip is demilitarised.
Hamas insists it will free hostages only as part of a deal to end the war and has rejected demands to lay down its arms.
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Israel’s offer for ceasefire in Gaza
Daily Telegraph (Herald-Sun, Courier-Mail) | 16 April 2025
GAZA CITY: Hamas said Israel has offered a 45-day ceasefire if it releases half of the remaining hostages held in Gaza, which the United Nations said is now in the grip of its worst humanitarian crisis since the start of the war.
A Hamas official told AFP that Israel had also demanded that the Palestinian militants disarm to secure an end to the Gaza war but that this crossed a “red line”.
Egyptian mediators passed on an Israeli proposal that “includes the release of half the hostages in the first week of the agreement, an extension of the truce for at least 45 days, and the entry of aid,” the official said.
Israel says 58 of the 251 hostages snatched by Hamas in its October 7, 2023 attacks are still held captive in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
“The proposal includes the disarmament of Hamas and all Palestinian armed factions in the Gaza Strip as a condition for a permanent end to the war,” the official said.
Hamas leaders were reviewing the ceasefire proposal but the official said: “Hamas and the resistance factions’ position is that the resistance’s weapons are a red line and non-negotiable.”
Israel did not immediately comment on the Hamas statement.
Senior Hamas official Taher al-Nunu indicated that the group was willing to release all hostages in exchange for a “serious prisoner swap” and guarantees that Israel would end the war.
“The issue is not the number of captives,” Nunu said, “but rather that the occupation is reneging on its commitments, blocking the implementation of the ceasefire agreement and continuing the war”.
Israeli news website Ynet reported that under a new ceasefire proposal, Hamas would release 10 living hostages in exchange for US guarantees that Israel would enter negotiations for a second phase of the ceasefire.
Israel resumed its military attacks on Gaza in March after the collapse of a two-month-old US-brokered ceasefire amid differences over the next phase.
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Sacked for ‘serious misconduct’
Federal court reveals BlackBay defence against anti-semitic lawyer
The Australian | Stephen Rice | 16 April 2025
Former BlackBay Lawyers partner Justin Carroll was sacked by the firm for “serious misconduct”, including using anti-Semitic slurs to describe clients and using “sexist and misogynistic” language about female colleagues, court documents reveal.
On Tuesday the Federal Court released details of the defence filed by BlackBay Lawyers when Mr Carroll lodged a fair work action against the firm claiming he was unfairly cut out of work coming into the practice and was short-changed on his final pay.
Mr Carroll had previously opposed the release of the documents but abandoned the objection after The Australian published WhatsApp messages between himself and colleague Yianni van Gelder denigrating Jews and laughing at the “Holohoax” and the “Schlomo-caust”.
The anti-Semitic rants stunned the Sydney legal establishment and prompted moves by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry to file a complaint to the NSW Legal Services Commissioner over the conduct of the two solicitors.
In further messages revealed by The Australian on Monday the pair called female colleagues “irrational” and prone to “snitching, backstabbing and rumour-mongering” with some remarks apparently aimed at BlackBay founder and managing partner Victoria-Jane Otavski.
The trove of incriminating messages revealed that for months before leaving BlackBay, Mr Carroll, 54, and Mr van Gelder, 28, were plotting to set up a rival firm, allegedly taking clients and confidential information with them.
In one exchange, Mr van Gelder wrote: “Will start extracting data, templates and precedent letters from BlackBay this weekend too”, to which Mr Carroll responded: “Yeah, me too.”
“Yeah, just make sure you copy the files properly, onto a portable hard drive”, Mr van Gelder cautioned, before advising his colleague to “avoid leaving an email paper trail”.
In its defence released on Tuesday BlackBay alleges that Mr Carroll was using its resources to establish his new law firm and “further his personal interests during working hours”, while contacting the firm’s clients and encouraging them to defect to his new enterprise.
Mr Carroll was also diverting inquiries to his new firm, sending costs agreements (for legal fees) while still employed by BlackBay and trying to solicit another employee to become a partner in the new firm, the defence alleges.
Mr Carroll was also copying and transferring precedents and client information onto external hard drives, the firm says.
BlackBay argues Mr Carroll is not entitled to keep the $25,000 advance he was given when he started with the firm and which he claims he was verbally told he did not have to pay back.
The firm has also launched a counter action against Mr Carroll and Mr van Gelder in the NSW Supreme Court for the return of confidential information and delivery of computers, phones and electronic devices for forensic analysis.
BlackBay is seeking to have Mr Carroll restrained from enticing any employee to leave the firm or soliciting its clients, and wants damages, or an account of profits, interest, costs and any other relief as deemed appropriate by the court.
Mr Carroll has previously told The Australian the WhatsApp messages were confidential and he intended to take legal action against the newspaper.
Mr van Gelder claimed the messages were “taken out of context, and were not intended to be taken seriously” but says that he was “sorry they have been published and have caused hurt and concern”.
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Radical cleric in ‘don’t vote’ push
The Australian | Alexi Demetriadi | 16 April 2025
Fundamentalist Sydney preacher Wissam Haddad has accelerated his “stay Muslim don’t vote” campaign by seemingly enlisting the help of Omar Bakri, the founder of outlawed terrorist network al-Muhajiroun.
Mr Haddad, also known as Abu Ousayd, has littered southwest Sydney and parts of inner-city Melbourne with campaign posters, a movement he first spruiked in mid-2024 and which was revealed by The Australian.
The radical preacher’s anti-democracy push stands in stark contrast to the community’s growing political participation, whether that be supporting one of the parties and running as a candidate, or the dual “Muslim vote” movements that emerged in 2024.
Those two campaigns – The Muslim Vote and Muslim Vote Matters – are separate and distinct but both seek to help elect pro-Palestine candidates and to increase political participation in the wider Muslim community.
Since the start of April, Mr Haddad has littered his social-media channels with his “campaign”, urging Muslim Australians to shun the ballot box on May 3. “This (not voting) is our opportunity to disassociate ourselves from that which contradicts our faith,” he said, encouraging followers to download the campaign’s poster and put up “as many as possible”.
“Even if we argue that there may be various benefits from participating in democracy, the harm upon one’s religion by committing this act of shirk (the sin of polytheism, or idolatry) is far worse than possible benefits.”
However, it is Mr Haddad’s enlisting of al-Muhajiroun founder Bakri to his cause that is perhaps most significant.
On Tuesday, Mr Haddad – who has previously boasted of his friendship with Bakri and co-led events with another of al-Muhajiroun’s leaders, Anjem Choudary – “teased” an as-yet released YouTube video with the terrorist network’s founder titled “the shirk of the Muslim vote”.
The exact nature and contents of the video is unknown, as is the extent of Bakri’s involvement in it.
Mr Haddad – who is defending allegations in the Federal Court that he vilified Australia’s Jewish community in a raft of sermons at his southwest Sydney centre – has longstanding links with Bakri and Choudary.
In August 2023, he published a YouTube video that included a lengthy personalised audio message from Bakri, who addressed Mr Haddad as his “dear brother”, and in 2022 he headlined multiple online conferences alongside Choudary.
Choudary was sentenced by British authorities in July 2024 to life imprisonment for terror offences while Bakri was released from a term of imprisonment in Lebanon in mid-2023.
Al-Muhajiroun has been described as a more radical offshoot of Hizb ut-Tahrir and some of its British members have committed terrorist attacks in London.
The Australian is not suggesting Mr Haddad is part of any group, rather reporting his own denials of any alleged links.
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IDF takes over one-third of Gaza
Hamas considers a new ceasefire deal as …
The Australian / Wall Street Journal | Dov Lieber & Summer Said | 16 April 2025
Israeli troops have taken over about a third of the Gaza Strip in renewed military action, declaring security zones in swaths of the north and south while pushing out their populations as part of a new strategy to ratchet up pressure on Hamas.
After relying mainly on airstrikes and tactical raids for the first 1½ years of the war, Israel is now seizing land and threatening to hold it indefinitely as it presses Hamas to release hostages still held in Gaza.
The shift reflects a realignment of the country’s approach to security to carve out deeper buffer zones in the wake of the deadly October 7, 2023, attacks led by Hamas.
It is also a way to create new consequences for Hamas by threatening to shrink Palestinians’ land if the hostages aren’t released.
Israel went back to war in March after ceasefire talks broke down, with Israel accusing Hamas of not releasing hostages and Hamas accusing Israel of failing to carry through with discussions over a permanent end to the fighting.
Hamas is now considering an Egyptian proposal to release as many as 11 of the 24 hostages still believed to be alive along with the bodies of several more in exchange for a ceasefire lasting up to 70 days, Egyptian officials said. The proposal is nearly identical to one offered by Israel and the US before the fighting resumed.
The proposal also includes a demand for Hamas to drop their weapons, a demand been strongly rejected by Hamas, the Egyptian officials said.
The deal would give Hamas a break from the fighting but would further defer any discussions over an end to the war. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been pushing for a deal that would free hostages but allow Israel to continue the war until Hamas is defeated or disarms on its own.
Since Israel renewed its ground assault in Gaza in mid-March, more than 30 per cent of the enclave has come under Israeli military control, an Israeli official said. Much of the movement has been in the south, where Israel carved out a new security corridor encircling the border city of Rafah and saying the area would become part of Israel’s security buffer.
Before moving in, Israel informed Egypt, which borders Rafah, that it intended to keep the area for the long term as a buffer, with Rafah completely cut off from cities to the north, Egyptian officials said. Israel also said it planned to expand security zones around Gaza City in the north, the Egyptian officials said.
Asked about the moves, Israel’s military said it was following an updated defence strategy that called for maintaining a broad military presence in buffer zones that had been cleared of threats. Evacuations are ordered to reduce harm to civilians, it said.
“Many territories are being seized and added to the security zones of the state of Israel, leaving Gaza smaller and more isolated,” Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said.
The prospect of a permanent loss of land opens old wounds for Gazans, many of whom are descendants of families forced out or which fled during the fighting that accompanied the founding of Israel more than 75 years ago.
If Hamas baulks over its ceasefire offer, Israeli officials and analysts say the Israeli Defence Forces will continue to divide Gaza into separate enclaves, evacuate civilians and try to trap any remaining militants.
“What we saw in the first 15 months of war is that when we attack one hide-out, they would move to a different one,” said Yaron Buskila, a lieutenant colonel in Israel’s military reserves and chief executive of Israel Defence and Security Forum, a security-oriented think tank.
“We understood we have to split the areas, so they cannot move from one to another,” he said. “Otherwise, it’s like water.”
The bulk of Gaza’s pre-war population of more than two million has been displaced multiple times by Israel’s military over the past 18 months. Many had returned to their old neighbourhoods earlier this year – a key achievement of the two-month ceasefire that took effect in January – but were forced to flee again after Israel resumed airstrikes and ground operations.
Nearly 400,000 Palestinians were displaced by Israeli evacuation orders between March 18 and April 8, the UN said. Around two-thirds of the enclave is either under evacuation orders or considered by Israel as a no-go zone, the UN said.
Israel on Saturday said its troops completed the creation of the so-called Morag corridor, an east-west route that cuts off Rafah from the rest of the territory. About two weeks earlier, Israel issued evacuation orders for the entire city, where hundreds of thousands lived before the war. Troops have been razing parts of Rafah, which was already heavily damaged from previous fighting.
Sara Sobhi, a 32-year-old mother of two, said the fighting started back up the very day she sent furniture to the half-finished home in Rafah where she had hoped to return.
Now she is sheltering in the nearby city of Khan Younis and watching Rafah “evaporate into black columns of smoke”.
Ms Sobhi, her five sisters and their parents have together lost six homes in Rafah. She said while losing their homes was hard, the idea of losing the land itself hit even harder.
“Let’s assume we gave up the homes, but we don’t want to give up the lands,” she said. “I was happy that I bought land before I became 30, and now it’s gone.”
Mr Buskila said troops in Rafah were removing Hamas’s underground tunnels, buildings where the group left explosives and munitions, and infrastructure such as sniper posts that could facilitate future fighting.
Israel is also creating another corridor north of Gaza City that cuts it off from the once densely populated neighbourhoods to its north.
In March, Israeli troops retook control of the Netzarim corridor, a sprawling security zone that Israel has expanded throughout the war, cutting off northern Gaza from the rest of the enclave. The result is that the 40km-long Palestinian enclave is divided by Israel’s military into four separate areas.
Mr Buskila said he expected further divisions to come.
The strategy is different from the one Israel employed earlier in the war when it moved troops from place to place and said repeatedly it wouldn’t occupy territory. It now is likely seizing territory to maximise leverage at the negotiating table with Hamas, but it isn’t clear what the government will do with those areas if the two sides can’t come to an agreement, Israeli security analysts said.
Israeli officials have said the country would keep a permanent buffer zone between itself and Gaza. That previously meant a belt about 800m wide along Gaza’s perimeter, where Israel has razed nearly all infrastructure.
In the Egyptian ceasefire proposal Hamas is considering, Israel would have to relinquish control of corridors that bisect Gaza, as well as agree to release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.
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US shifts focus to Hezbollah
The Australian / AFP | Lynne al-Nahhas | 16 April 2025
The once-unthinkable disarmament of Hezbollah could finally be within reach, as the US pushes Lebanon to act and applies pressure to the group’s backer Iran over its nuclear program, analysts said.
Hezbollah was left badly weakened by more than a year of hostilities with Israel, beginning with its campaign of rocket fire at its arch foe in support of Hamas, and culminating in a major Israeli bombing campaign and ground incursion into Lebanon.
In the months after the war, which devastated parts of the country and killed many of the movement’s top leaders, Lebanon elected a president and formed a government after a more than two-year vacuum as the balance of power shifted.
The war “clearly changed the situation on the ground in Lebanon”, said David Wood from the International Crisis Group.
“It’s conceivable to think that Hezbollah could move towards disarmament and potentially even participate in that process willingly,” Mr Wood said.
Hezbollah long presented itself as the country’s best line of defence against Israel. But both its arms stockpiles and senior leadership have been sapped by the conflict, with longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah among the commanders killed.
Under a November 27 truce, Hezbollah was to withdraw its fighters to the north of Lebanon’s Litani River and dismantle any remaining military infrastructure in the south, while the Lebanese army was to deploy in the area.
Israel was meant to withdraw its troops, but it still remains in five points it deems “strategic” and conducts regular strikes on what it says are mostly Hezbollah targets.
A source close to Hezbollah said the group had ceded to the Lebanese army about 190 of its 265 military positions identified south of the Litani.
US deputy special envoy for the Middle East Morgan Ortagus, who is spearheading Washington’s campaign to pressure the Lebanese government to disarm Hezbollah, this month said it should happen “as soon as possible”.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, who has pledged a state monopoly on bearing arms, has said the issue requires national dialogue. Hezbollah, which was established after a 1982 Israeli invasion, has agreed to significant political compromises, including declining to stand in the way of the selection of the new president.
Hanin Ghaddar from The Washington Institute said Hezbollah’s disarmament was “inevitable”. The only alternative to the Lebanese state disarming the group “is that Israel is going to do it” militarily, Mr Ghaddar said.
Retired south Lebanon intelligence chief General Ali Shahrour said after Hezbollah’s recent setbacks “it is certainly not in its interest to engage in any war (with Israel) or confrontation against the (Lebanese) state” in opposition to disarmament.
He said talks between Hezbollah’s patron Iran and the US on curbing Tehran’s nuclear program would impact Iran-backed groups across the region.
Those negotiations kicked off last weekend, with US President Donald Trump threatening military action against Iran if they failed to reach a deal.
Several Hezbollah officials have said the group is ready for dialogue on Lebanon’s defence strategy, including the issue of the group’s weapons, but is not prepared to surrender them now.
Mr Ghaddar said Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem and the chief of its parliamentary bloc, Mohammed Raad, likely wanted “to play the time game” to avoid disarmament. Hezbollah wants “to survive” as a military institution, she said, adding any internal divisions would centre on “how to go about it”.
Several experts said Israel’s troop presence along the border played into the group’s hands.
“The Israelis are certainly providing Hezbollah with justification to retain its weapons,” said Mr Shahrour.
The source close to Hezbollah, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Lebanon’s army lacked “the military capability to defend the south” against Israel. They accused Washington of insisting Hezbollah’s rockets be destroyed, rather than confiscated, in order to keep Lebanon’s army weak.
Mr Wood said Beirut’s options included dismantling Hezbollah’s military infrastructure or integrating its weapons and fighters into the regular army. The “safest approach” is “to move cautiously and take time”, he said. “It is possible that Iran would seek to trade its support for regional allies, including Hezbollah, for concessions in negotiations with the US.”
Karim Bitar, a lecturer in Middle East Studies at the Sciences Po university in Paris, said the issue of what should come first – Israel’s full withdrawal or Hezbollah’s disarmament – was “a chicken and egg situation”. “In the absence of an Iranian green light, I doubt that Hezbollah would willingly relinquish its weapons to the Lebanese army, even if they are offered to form an autonomous battalion within the Lebanese army,” he said. “A lot of this will depend on the US-Iranian negotiations.”
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