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Israel Signals Determination to Continue Lebanon Truce Enforcement
Supporters of Hezbollah attend a protest organized by them against what they said was a violation of national sovereignty, near Beirut international airport, Lebanon, February 15, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Emilie Madi
JNS.org – Israel is signaling firm resolve with regard to enforcing the ceasefire arrangement with Lebanon and preventing Hezbollah from rebuilding its terrorist army in the south of the country, while preparing to withdraw from Southern Lebanon on Tuesday, Feb. 18.
Recent Israel Defense Forces operations in response to Hezbollah truce violations reflect a new reality in which Jerusalem will no longer passively stand by and watch Hezbollah rebuild its offensive capabilities.
Yoni Tobin, a senior policy analyst at the Washington D.C.-based Jewish Institute for National Security of America, told JNS on Feb. 14 that “despite the predictable unfounded criticism, Israel has demonstrated both the willingness and ability to enforce the ceasefire in response to Hezbollah’s flagrant violations.”
Recent Israeli strikes against Hezbollah threats across Lebanon, he said, “including in not only the south but also the eastern Beqaa Valley, show Israel’s resolve to end its adversaries’ habitual practice of using ceasefires to rearm, regroup, and again threaten the lives of Israeli citizens.”
Tobin further noted that “American backing for Israel’s freedom of action and the US leadership role in the ceasefire oversight mechanism, including spurring the long-apathetic LAF [Lebanese Armed Forces] into action, have been indispensable ingredients of the ceasefire’s overall success.”
As the IDF moves toward its scheduled withdrawal from Southern Lebanon, questions remain about how Israel will enforce the arrangement after the IDF redeploys. It appears highly likely that cross-border ground raids and airstrikes will continue in response to intelligence of violations, and that the precedent for this is already being set.
Moreover, according to international media reports on Feb. 14, Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri said that he had been notified by the United States that Israel would withdraw on Feb. 18, but would remain at five positions in southern Lebanon close to the Israeli border. This aligns with a Feb. 12 report by Israel’s Kan public broadcaster according to which “the IDF is building five new outposts in Lebanon from which it does not intend to withdraw.”
There has been no confirmation from Israeli authorities at this stage regarding Israel’s intentions regarding these five positions.
According to senior JINSA policy analyst Tobin, “Israel maintains both the capacity and the right, made explicit in the ceasefire deal’s provisions, to prevent Hezbollah from again posing a threat to the Israeli homeland.” He argued that “regardless of how it does so, whether exclusively through airstrikes or by retaining a limited number of strategic outposts across the Blue Line as has been reported, Israel will need to keep acting decisively against Hezbollah to ensure Israel’s northern residents can safely and permanently return home.”
In addition, he said, “Continuous US support for Israel’s freedom of action, direct US supervision of the ceasefire’s enforcement and US pressure on the LAF to push the momentum against Hezbollah across Lebanon will be crucial elements of a successful and lasting arrangement.”
Meanwhile, it seems that hardly a day goes by without IDF action to enforce the truce, thwarting not only Hezbollah but also Iran.
On Feb. 12 IDF Arabic-language Spokesman Col. Avichay Adraee stated that “the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and Hezbollah have been exploiting civilian flights arriving at Beirut Airport in recent weeks to transfer money intended to rearm Hezbollah in Lebanon.”
This message was a clear warning to Lebanese authorities; It appears as though the truce monitoring mechanism led by US military officer Maj. Gen. Jasper Jeffers and comprising Lebanese, United Nations and French representatives, was unable to act to stop the terror financing flights from Iran.
The next day, the Lebanese army fired shots to remove Hezbollah protesters from the airports’ vicinity, after the Lebanese government banned an Iranian flight landing in Beirut. According to AFP, on Feb. 14, Lebanon prevented a second Iranian flight from landing for fear of Israel’s reaction.
“Through the Americans, Israel informed the Lebanese state that it would target the airport if the Iranian plane landed in Lebanon,” the AFP reported.
These developments have led to clashes between the LAF and pro-Hezbollah Shi’ite activists, as well as attacks on UNIFIL vehicles and commanders.
The deputy commander of UNIFIL was injured on Feb. 14 after his convoy to Beirut Airport was set upon by pro-Hezbollah activists.
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Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials
FILE PHOTO: The atomic symbol and the Iranian flag are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
i24 News – Iranian and Iran-affiliated media claimed on Saturday that the Islamic Republic had obtained a trove of “strategic and sensitive” Israeli intelligence materials related to Israel’s nuclear facilities and defense plans.
“Iran’s intelligence apparatus has obtained a vast quantity of strategic and sensitive information and documents belonging to the Zionist regime,” Iran’s state broadcaster said, referring to Israel in the manner accepted in those Muslim or Arab states that don’t recognize its legitimacy. The statement was also relayed by the Lebanese site Al-Mayadeen, affiliated with the Iran-backed jihadists of Hezbollah.
The reports did not include any details on the documents or how Iran had obtained them.
The intelligence reportedly included “thousands of documents related to that regime’s nuclear plans and facilities,” it added.
According to the reports, “the data haul was extracted during a covert operation and included a vast volume of materials including documents, images, and videos.”
The report comes amid high tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, over which it is in talks with the US administration of President Donald Trump.
Iranian-Israeli tensions reached an all-time high since the October 7 massacre and the subsequent Gaza war, including Iranian rocket fire on Israel and Israeli aerial raids in Iran that devastated much of the regime’s air defenses.
Israel, which regards the prospect of the antisemitic mullah regime obtaining a nuclear weapon as an existential threat, has indicated it could resort to a military strike against Iran’s installations should talks fail to curb uranium enrichment.
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Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz looks on, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
The Israeli military has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage who had been held in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday.
Nattapong Pinta’s body was held by a Palestinian terrorist group called the Mujahedeen Brigades, and was recovered from the area of Rafah in southern Gaza, Katz said. His family in Thailand has been notified.
Pinta, an agricultural worker, was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, a small Israeli community near the Gaza border where a quarter of the population was killed or taken hostage during the Hamas attack that triggered the devastating war in Gaza.
Israel’s military said Pinta had been abducted alive and killed by his captors, who had also killed and taken to Gaza the bodies of two more Israeli-American hostages that were retrieved earlier this week.
There was no immediate comment from the Mujahedeen Brigades, who have previously denied killing their captives, or from Hamas. The Israeli military said the Brigades were still holding the body of another foreign national. Only 20 of the 55 remaining hostages are believed to still be alive.
The Mujahedeen Brigades also held and killed Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, according to Israeli authorities. Their bodies were returned during a two-month ceasefire, which collapsed in March after the two sides could not agree on terms for extending it to a second phase.
Israel has since expanded its offensive across the Gaza Strip as US, Qatari and Egyptian-led efforts to secure another ceasefire have faltered.
US-BACKED AID GROUP HALTS DISTRIBUTIONS
The United Nations has warned that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade of the enclave, with the rate of young children suffering from acute malnutrition nearly tripling.
Aid distribution was halted on Friday after the US-and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said overcrowding had made it unsafe to continue operations. It was unclear whether aid had resumed on Saturday.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of aid distribution which the United Nations says is neither impartial nor neutral. It says it has provided around 9 million meals so far.
The Israeli military said on Saturday that 350 trucks of humanitarian aid belonging to U.N. and other international relief groups were transferred this week via the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.
The war erupted after Hamas-led terrorists took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in the October 7, 2023 attack, Israel’s single deadliest day.
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US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
The State Department is weighing giving $500 million to the new foundation providing aid to war-shattered Gaza, according to two knowledgeable sources and two former US officials, a move that would involve the US more deeply in a controversial aid effort that has been beset by violence and chaos.
The sources and former US officials, all of whom requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that money for Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) would come from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is being folded into the US State Department.
The plan has met resistance from some US officials concerned with the deadly shootings of Palestinians near aid distribution sites and the competence of the GHF, the two sources said.
The GHF, which has been fiercely criticized by humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, for an alleged lack of neutrality, began distributing aid last week amid warnings that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli aid blockade, which was lifted on May 19 when limited deliveries were allowed to resume.
The foundation has seen senior personnel quit and had to pause handouts twice this week after crowds overwhelmed its distribution hubs.
The State Department and GHF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Reuters has been unable to establish who is currently funding the GHF operations, which began in Gaza last week. The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to transport aid into Gaza for distribution at so-called secure distribution sites.
On Thursday, Reuters reported that a Chicago-based private equity firm, McNally Capital, has an “economic interest” in the for-profit US contractor overseeing the logistics and security of GHF’s aid distribution hubs in the enclave.
While US President Donald Trump’s administration and Israel say they don’t finance the GHF operation, both have been pressing the United Nations and international aid groups to work with it.
The US and Israel argue that aid distributed by a long-established U.N. aid network was diverted to Hamas. Hamas has denied that.
USAID has been all but dismantled. Some 80 percent of its programs have been canceled and its staff face termination as part of President Donald Trump’s drive to align US foreign policy with his “America First” agenda.
One source with knowledge of the matter and one former senior official said the proposal to give the $500 million to GHF has been championed by acting deputy USAID Administrator Ken Jackson, who has helped oversee the agency’s dismemberment.
The source said that Israel requested the funds to underwrite GHF’s operations for 180 days.
The Israeli government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The two sources said that some US officials have concerns with the plan because of the overcrowding that has affected the aid distribution hubs run by GHF’s contractor, and violence nearby.
Those officials also want well-established non-governmental organizations experienced in running aid operations in Gaza and elsewhere to be involved in the operation if the State Department approves the funds for GHF, a position that Israel likely will oppose, the sources said.
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