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Enforcing the Truce: ‘Our Actions Will Talk,’ Israeli Security Official Says
A view shows the moment of an Israeli strike on a building, amid the ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, in the Chiyah district of Beirut’s southern suburbs, Lebanon, Nov. 25, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Adnan Abidi
JNS.org – The Israel Defense Forces delivered a severe blow to Hezbollah during the recent conflict, significantly degrading the Iranian-backed Lebanese terrorist organization’s capabilities, and is determined to use force if it detects attempts to supply it with weapons, according to Israeli security officials.
An Israeli security official said on Wednesday that on Oct. 8, 2023, a day after the Hamas-led mass murder attack in the south, “it was Hezbollah that started a war against Israel.”
He emphasized the impact of the conflict on Israeli civilians, saying that Hezbollah fired more than 17,000 rockets, missiles and UAVs at Israel over the past year, targeting civilians, cities and towns, killing dozens of civilians and forcing 60,000 Israelis out of their homes in the north.
“Hezbollah made a mistake starting this war with Israel. [The group’s leader Hassan] Nasrallah made this mistake,” said the source.
The official detailed the achievements of the IDF: “Today, after almost 14 months, we have brought a major achievement that has brought a severe blow on Hezbollah, bringing Hezbollah dozens of years back. Hezbollah brought a disaster on Lebanon and tried to drag all the Middle East into a larger escalation.”
Highlighting the IDF’s current posture, the source said the Israeli military is currently positioned in Southern Lebanon, where it is patrolling the ground, while the Israeli Air Force conducts patrols over Lebanon to enforce the truce arrangement.
“We are ready for any development or any violation of Hezbollah. And there is a possibility for a new reality in Lebanon,” said the source.
He called on the Lebanese government to enforce the ceasefire, saying that it “should enforce it on all terror organizations. And this is what agreed. And by enforcing this agreement, this is the condition, I think, for the stability and also the prosperity of Lebanon as a country.”
The official stressed Israel’s commitment to preventing Hezbollah’s rearmament. He vowed that the military would respond to any intelligence of attempts to deliver arms into Lebanon for Hezbollah. “We will enforce it by fire. We will not let any arms be delivered to Hezbollah from the Syrian border or by any other method. And our actions will talk, not our words.”
The Israeli security official also addressed the mechanisms in place to prevent Hezbollah’s rearmament, saying, “We are monitoring the Middle East, we are monitoring Syria. We are monitoring the pathways. We are monitor not just the pathways, but any other way or method to deliver arms to Hezbollah.
“Of course, if we will see Hezbollah coming back or trying to build any capabilities …, we will prevent it. Of course, there is a mechanism in the agreement, but in the end the mechanism, if it won’t be enforced by others, it will be enforced by the IDF,” he added.
Addressing the initial phase of the truce, the official said this period will be crucial, and will see the IDF remain in positions in Southern Lebanon.
“If everything works in order and to plan, this is a gradual agreement. Our forces will leave Southern Lebanon after 60 days,” he explained. On the other hands, if the IDF sees armed terrorists trying to restore military facilities, it will act, he said.
“There won’t be any houses with missiles or rockets or arms. This is unacceptable,” the source clarified.
A different reality
On Wednesday, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said, “The activity in Lebanon was very determined, and the enforcement of the ceasefire agreement will be even more determined. With determination, according to the guidelines approved yesterday by the minister of defense, the prime minister, and the Cabinet, Hezbollah operatives who approach our troops, the border area, and the villages within the area we have marked—will be hit.”
Halevi emphasized the importance of ensuring the safety of residents of northern Israel, saying that IDF ground troops will be the first to encounter terrorists returning to Southern Lebanese villages with “a warning, with fire, with capabilities and mostly with air support.”
The general highlighted the IDF’s preparedness to enforce the truce, adding that Israeli aircraft are continuously airborne while naval vessels are gathering information and also capable of striking targets. “Above all, we are preparing, getting ready for the possibility that this approach won’t succeed,” he cautioned.
“We are very, very determined to enforce the guidelines and bring about a completely different reality for the residents of the north,” said Halevi.
Hezbollah is no deterrence
Maj. Gen. (res.) Yaakov Amidror, former head of the National Security Council, said that Iran’s position has deteriorated significantly, speaking during a call organized by the Jerusalem Press Club on Wednesday.
“Iran now is much weaker than a year ago,” Amidror said, adding that while Hezbollah in Lebanon is stronger than Hamas in Gaza, neither can function at this time as Iranian proxies capable of deterring Israel.
“That was the whole idea to build Hezbollah—to deter Israel. Hezbollah is no deterrence anymore. We know how to cope with it. We know what its weakness points are and we know how to continue to destroy it if there will be a need. They lost Hezbollah as an asset against Israel,” said Amidror.
He highlighted the impact of the war on Hezbollah’s leadership. “We succeeded in eliminating all its leadership from Nasrallah down three levels. No one answers the phone anymore. The whole leadership, which … led Hezbollah in the last 40 years, their leadership does not exist.”
Discussing the potential for Hezbollah’s rearmament, Amidror said that the more Hezbollah understands its weakness, the “more cautious Hezbollah will be to violate the agreement.”
He also warned of the consequences if the terrorist group attempts to rearm, saying, “The minute that Hezbollah feels that it is strong enough to violate the agreement, then it’s the end of the ceasefire. From my point of view, my advice will be it’s the end of the ceasefire.”
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US Condemns UN for Extending Mandate of Anti-Israel Official Francesca Albanese
Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, attends a side event during the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, March 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
The United States has “strongly denounced” the United Nations for extending the tenure of controversial UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, repudiating the decision as an example of “antisemitic hatred” within the international organization.
“The Human Rights Council’s (HRC) support for Ms. Albanese offers yet another example of why President Trump ordered the United States to cease all participation in the HRC,” the US Mission to the UN said in a statement on Tuesday. “Ms. Albanese’s actions also make clear the United Nations tolerates antisemitic hatred, bias against Israel, and the legitimization of terrorism.”
Albanese, an Italian lawyer and academic, has held the position of UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories since 2022. The position authorizes her to monitor and report on alleged “human rights violations” that Israel supposedly commits against Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
Earlier this month, the UN Human Rights Council renewed the mandate of Albanese, despite widespread calls from several countries and NGOs urging UN members to oppose her reappointment due to her controversial remarks and alleged pro-Hamas stance.
Critics of Albanese have long accused her of exhibiting an excessive anti-Israel bias, calling into question her fairness and neutrality.
Albanese has an extensive history of using her role at the UN to denigrate Israel and seemingly rationalize the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s attacks on the Jewish state.
In the months following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, atrocities across southern Israel, Albanese accused the Jewish state of enacting a “genocide” against the Palestinian people in revenge for the attacks and circulated a widely derided and heavily disputed report alleging that 186,000 people had been killed in the Gaza war as a result of Israeli actions.
The United Nations launched a probe into Albanese last summer for allegedly accepting a trip to Australia funded by pro-Hamas organizations. She has also celebrated the anti-Israel protesters rampaging across US college campuses, saying they represent a “revolution” and give her “hope.”
While speaking at a Washington, DC bookstore in October, Albanese also accused Israel of weaponizing the fallout of the Oct. 7 slaughters to justify the continued “colonization” of Gaza.
“The 7th of October is a tragic date for the Israelis, but this is what also triggered the opportunity for Israel to complete and channel the project of colonial erasure. Israel seized the opportunity to complete that plan of realizing Jewish sovereignty only in the land of Palestine,” Albanese said at the time.
The UN official has also decried Israelis as “foreign” Jews who expelled “indigenous” Palestinians from their land for the purpose of creating an exclusionary ethnostate, erasing the millennia-long presence of Jewish people within the land of Israel. She has also repeatedly condemned Israel as a “colonial” enterprise, comparing the Jewish state to British India or French Algeria.
“They used to say, let us colonize Palestine as the Brits have colonized India, as the French have colonized Algeria, because up to 70 years ago, colonialism was totally acceptable. Today, it’s not and so the narrative has changed,” Albanese said.
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Award-Winning French Actress Mélanie Laurent Joins ‘Fauda’ Season 5 Cast in Lead Role
French actress Mélanie Laurent. Photo: yes Studios.
Multi-award-winning French actress Mélanie Laurent will take on a lead role in the fifth season of the popular Israeli television series “Fauda,” Israel’s yes Studios announced this week.
Laurent’s film credits include “Inglorious Basterds” (2009), “Now You See Me” (2013), and “Operation Finale” (2018). She has two César Awards and a Lumières Award. Her most recent work includes last year’s “The Flood,” a French-Italian film where she played Marie-Antionette, and the French-language film “Freedom,” which she wrote and directed.
Laurent will be featured in seven of the nine episodes in season five of “Fauda,” according to yes Studios. Details about her character and role in the Hebrew-language show have not been revealed, but she will star alongside “Fauda” co-creator and lead star Lior Raz, with whom she previously worked on the 2019 Netflix film “6 Underground.”
Season five of “Fauda” is expected to premiere on yes TV in Israel in early 2026 and will later stream worldwide on Netflix, where the first four seasons of the award-winning show are already streaming. Yes Studios announced in March that filming for “Fauda” season five will begin in late April.
The upcoming season will be filmed in Israel and overseas, following the “Fauda” team on a private mission. Details about the plot for the new season have been kept under wraps. The fifth season will mark 10 years of “Fauda” airing in Israel and around the world on Netflix.
Israeli actor Idan Amedi said in February he will not return for the fifth season of “Fauda” because of his music career and ongoing rehabilitation from injuries he sustained while fighting with the Israel Defense Forces in the Gaza Strip during the Israel-Hamas war that began in 2023. Amedi starred in the show as undercover agent Sagi Tzur, who is the husband of intelligence officer Nurit (Rona-Lee Shimon), who will still be featured in the show’s next season. It remains unclear how “Fauda” will address the exit of Amedi’s character.
As Israel’s longest running action series, “Fauda” follows a team of elite Israeli undercover agents as they hunt down and apprehend terrorists. The show is based on the real-life experiences of its creators, Raz and journalist Avi Issacharoff. The new season is being led by season 4 director Omri Givon (“Hostages”) and written by Omri Shenhar (“Tehran”). “Fauda” is produced by yes TV and L. Benasuly Productions for yes TV.
“Fauda” crew member Matan Meir was killed in action in November 2023 while fighting in Gaza as an IDF reservist.
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Israel Will Keep Gaza Buffer Zone, Minister Says, as Truce Bid Stalls
Smoke rises from Gaza after an explosion, as seen from the Israeli side of the border, April 14, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
Israeli troops will remain in the buffer zones they have created in Gaza even after any settlement to end the war, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Wednesday, as efforts to revive a ceasefire agreement faltered.
Since resuming military operations last month, Israeli forces have carved out a broad “security zone” extending deep into Gaza and squeezing some 2 million Palestinians into ever smaller areas in the south and along the coastline.
“Unlike in the past, the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] is not evacuating areas that have been cleared and seized,” Katz said in a statement following a meeting with military commanders.
“The IDF will remain in the security zones as a buffer between the enemy and the communities in any temporary or permanent situation in Gaza — as in Lebanon and Syria.”
In a summary of its operations over the past month, the Israeli military said it now controls 30 percent of the Palestinian enclave.
In southern Gaza alone, Israeli forces have seized the border city of Rafah and pushed inland up to the so-called “Morag corridor” that runs from the eastern edge of Gaza to the Mediterranean Sea, between Rafah and the city of Khan Younis.
It already held a wide corridor across the central Netzarim area and has extended a buffer zone all around the frontier hundreds of meters (yards) inland, including the Shejaia area just to the east of Gaza City in the north.
Israel says its forces have killed hundreds of Hamas fighters, including many senior commanders of the Palestinian terrorist group, since March 18 but the operation has alarmed the United Nations and European countries.
More than 400,000 Palestinians have been displaced since hostilities resumed on March 18 after two months of relative calm, according to UN humanitarian agency OCHA.
Katz said Israel, which has blocked the delivery of relief supplies into the territory since early March, was creating infrastructure to allow distribution through civilian companies at a later date, but the blockade on aid would remain in place. Israeli officials have noted that Hamas often seizes humanitarian aid heading into Gaza for its own use and will sell the rest to Gazan civilians at high prices, using the money to fund its terrorism operations.
He said Israel would pursue a plan to allow Gazans who wished to leave the enclave to do so, although it remains unclear which countries would be willing to accept large numbers of Palestinians.
RED LINES
The comments from Katz, repeating Israel‘s demand on Hamas to disarm, underscore how far away the two sides remain from any ceasefire agreement, despite efforts by Egyptian mediators to revive efforts to reach a deal.
Hamas has repeatedly described calls to disarm as a red line it will not cross and has said Israeli troops must withdraw from Gaza under any permanent ceasefire.
“Any truce lacking real guarantees for halting the war, achieving full withdrawal, lifting the blockade, and beginning reconstruction will be a political trap,” Hamas said in a statement on Wednesday.
Two Israeli officials said this week there had been no progress in the talks despite media reports of a possible truce to allow the exchange of some of the 59 hostages still held in Gaza for Palestinian prisoners.
Israeli officials have said the increased military pressure will force Hamas to release the hostages but the government has faced large demonstrations by Israeli protesters demanding a deal to stop the fighting and get them back.
Israel launched its war in Gaza in response to the October 2023 attack by Hamas on southern Israel that killed 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage.
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