The UNIFIL mandate in southern Lebanon wavers under US pressure
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Nahar Net
3 hours ago
- Nahar Net
Report: Army chief refuses clash with Hezbollah as army prepares four-stage plan
by Naharnet Newsdesk 11 hours Army Commander General Rodolph Haykal has told Speaker Nabih Berri that he does not want to clash with Hezbollah, in a meeting Tuesday at Ain el-Tineh, pro-Hezbollah al-Akhbar newpaper reported. Al-Akhbar said Wednesday that it has learned from prominent sources that the meeting with Berri was "positive" and that Haykal has told both Berri and Hezbollah that Hezbollah's disarmament requires dialogue and understanding and that the disarmament plan "cannot be implemented by force." The Lebanese government had ordered the army to devise plans by the end of 2025 to disarm Hezbollah. "The problem is with the authority not with the army," Haykal reportedly told Berri, describing Hezbollah as a "fundamental Lebanese component." According to the daily's sources, the army has begun preparing a four-stage plan, targeting heavy missile weapons. This plan intersects with an American proposal of a four-stage plan starting from the area between the Litani and Awali rivers, followed by the Bekaa, Beirut's southern suburbs, and Greater Beirut, al-Akhbar said.
Nahar Net
4 hours ago
- Nahar Net
Larijani says US not Iran intervening in Lebanese affairs
by Naharnet Newsdesk 14 hours Iran's Supreme National Security Council chief Ali Larijani advised the Lebanese to preserve the resistance and accused the United States of "ordering" the Lebanese government to implement "a foreign plan", as he met Wednesday with President Joseph Aoun, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri. Larijani's visit to Lebanon comes after the Lebanese government ordered the army to devise plans to disarm Hezbollah. Following his arrival in Beirut, Larijani vowed that his government would continue to provide support, after it expressed opposition to the disarmament plan. The senior Iranian official said his country rejected the plan and that any proposal to disarm Hezbollah should be part of an internal dialogue between the government and the Iran-backed group. He called on the Lebanese people to preserve "the resistance," saying that Iran will stand by Lebanon in case of any Israeli escalation and if Lebanon asks for help. "We respect any decision taken by the Lebanese government in coordination and cooperation with Lebanon's factions ... and consider Lebanon's unity to be very important but we don't support the foreign orders through which a certain timetable is specified," Larijani said after his meetings, in reference to a paper submitted by U.S. envoy Tom Barrack to Lebanese officials. The proposal includes a timetable for Hezbollah's disarmament. Larijani said that no foreign power should give orders to Lebanon, adding that it was not Iran but the United States that was intervening. Aoun had earlier told Larijani that he rejected any interference in the country's internal affairs, branding as "unconstructive" Iran's statements on plans to disarm Hezbollah. "The one who interferes in Lebanese affairs is the one who plans for you, gives you a timetable from thousands of kilometers away. We did not give you any plan," Larijani said. He added that Iran currently has "the best relations with Lebanon" and lauded the role that Aoun is playing "in bolstering national unity and unifying ranks inside all Lebanese sects and with all components."
L'Orient-Le Jour
7 hours ago
- L'Orient-Le Jour
South Sudan denies reports of talk with Israel on taking Gazans
South Sudan is not in talks with Israel to resettle Palestinians from war-torn Gaza, South Sudan's foreign ministry said on Wednesday. On Tuesday, the Associated Press, citing six people with knowledge of the matter, reported that Israel was holding discussions with Juba to resettle Palestinians from Gaza in the East African nation, part of a plan widely condemned as ethnic cleansing. "These claims are baseless and do not reflect the official position or policy of the Government of the Republic of South Sudan," South Sudan's foreign affairs ministry said in a statement. Israeli media reported, citing a diplomatic source, that Israel is currently in talks with four other countries, besides South Sudan — Indonesia, Somaliland, Uganda and Libya — in an attempt to find countries who would receive forcibly displaced Palestinians amid Israel's plan to completely occupy Gaza Strip. 'Some of the countries are showing greater openness than before to accepting voluntary immigration from the Gaza Strip,' a diplomatic source told Channel 12, naming Indonesia and Somaliland in particular. However, no concrete decisions have reportedly been made. Somaliland is a breakaway region of Somalia that is reportedly hoping to secure international recognition through the deal. In recent days, Israel's military has pounded Gaza City, the first city that the Israeli army plans to seize and occupy in its takeover plans. More than two million people live in the besieged and devastated Strip. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday reiterated a view — also enthusiastically floated by U.S. President Donald Trump — that Palestinians should simply leave Gaza. Many world leaders have expressed strong distaste for Israel's plan of displacing the Gaza population, which Palestinians say would be like another "Nakba" (catastrophe) when hundreds of thousands fled or were forced out during the creation of Israel in 1948. In March, Somalia and its breakaway region of Somaliland also denied receiving any proposal from the United States or Israel to resettle Palestinians from Gaza, with Mogadishu saying it categorically rejected any such move. South Sudan's Foreign Minister Monday Semaya Kumba visited Israel last month and met with Netanyahu, according to the foreign ministry in Juba. Last month South Sudan's government confirmed that eight migrants deported to the African nation by the Trump administration were currently in the care of the authorities in Juba after they lost a legal battle to halt their transfer. Since achieving independence from Sudan in 2011, South Sudan has spent nearly half its life at war and is currently in the grip of a political crisis, after President Salva Kiir's government ordered the arrest of Vice President Riek Machar in March.
