Eurasia Press & News
Hezbollah has maintained that it will continue fighting unless the war in Gaza is brought to an end
Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar reported on 27 January that a recent meeting between the deputy director of German intelligence and a top Hezbollah official failed to convince Lebanon’s resistance to end its operations against Israel.
The meeting was in line with general “western efforts to separate the Lebanese front from the Palestinian front.”
The meeting took place around two weeks ago between Uli Diyal, deputy director of Berlin’s foreign intelligence, and the deputy Secretary-General of Hezbollah, Naim Qassem.
According to information obtained by the Lebanese daily, “the Germans were unable to persuade the resistance to stop its operations or to promote the idea of separating the fronts.”
Citing sources, the report says that “Sheikh Qassem emphasized the resistance’s decision and its ability to defeat the enemy if it expanded its aggression. He refused to enter any discussion [on ending operations] before stopping the war on Gaza, urging Germany to put pressure on Israel to stop the war.”
“Unless the war stops in Gaza, it cannot stop in Lebanon,” Qassem said more recently, on 26 January.
Since the beginning of Hezbollah’s daily operations in support of Gaza on 8 October, western nations have been pressuring Lebanon on behalf of Israel.
French Special Envoy to Lebanon Jean-Yves Le Drian, during his visits to the country, conveyed a “western desire to pressure Hezbollah to commit to implementing Resolution 1701,” and to abandon the status-quo “that governed the southern front before October 7,” Al-Akhbar reported in late November.
The agreement calls for Hezbollah’s withdrawal from areas south of the Litani River. However, western countries have not pressured Israel to implement its side of the agreement, which would force it to withdraw from areas it illegally encroached on following the 2006 war.
In addition to this, Lebanese territory — including the Shebaa Farms, the Kfar Shuba hills, and the town of Ghajar, among other areas — remains under decades-long Israeli occupation.
Earlier this month, senior White House advisor Amos Hochstein visited Lebanon. According to Al-Akhbar, Hochstein told officials that Hezbollah must withdraw from the border, threatening that “otherwise, Israel will launch a war against Hezbollah, which, along with Lebanon, must learn from what happened in Gaza.”
The daily’s latest report on German communication with Hezbollah coincided with another Lebanese report claiming that an unnamed Arab country has provided the Lebanese resistance with an intelligence report on an Israeli plan to launch an offensive against Lebanon.
The offensive would aim to push Hezbollah back from the border in a forceful implementation of Resolution 1701, on the Lebanese side only. It had already been reported last month that Tel Aviv was drawing up plans for an invasion of Lebanon.
Meanwhile, fighting has intensified on the southern border. Violent Israeli airstrikes and artillery shelling struck southern Lebanon on 28 January and the night before.
Hezbollah has escalated its operations against Israel over the past two days. Hebrew media described the evening of 26 January as among the most difficult days on the northern front since the war began, as Israeli military sites came under heavy fire from the Lebanese resistance.
