Latest News from Nahar Net
Nahar Net
2 hours ago
- Politics
- Nahar Net
Salam: We don't want civil war but we're committed to extending state authority
by Naharnet Newsdesk 29 May 2025, 12:34 Prime Minister Nawaf Salam has told the Wall Street Journal that the Lebanese government has achieved 80% of its objectives in taking control of country's south. The November 2024 ceasefire ended more than a year of fighting, including some two months of open war, between Israel and Hezbollah. 'All over the Lebanese territory, the state should have a monopoly on arms,' Salam added, reportedly banging his fists on a table. 'We don't want to put the country onto a civil-war track, but believe me, this is not going to affect our commitment to the need to extend and consolidate the authority of the state,' he said. Israeli intelligence, delivered to the Lebanese via the U.S., helped locate remaining Hezbollah caches and posts in the south, unidentified senior Arab officials told the newspaper. Some of the weapons were destroyed, others were kept for the army's own use. Though the ceasefire agreement focuses on dismantling Hezbollah south of the Litani River, the report said that Salam and the U.S. are pushing for the same disarmament of the group across the rest of the country. However, the group has insisted it needs to retain some arms, with Hezbollah lawmaker Ibrahim al-Moussawi telling the Wall Street Journal that 'Hezbollah arms that continue to exist in certain parts are points of strength of Lebanon.' Senior officials in Hezbollah and the government are concerned about the possibility of internal Lebanese clashes, though Salam said he is determined to see the disarmament through. 'We don't want to put the country onto a civil-war track, but believe me, this is not going to affect our commitment to the need to extend and consolidate the authority of the state,' he said. During the ongoing ceasefire in Lebanon, the Israeli army has continued to strike Hezbollah operatives and sites it says violate the understandings between Israel and Lebanon. More than 150 Hezbollah operatives have been reportedly killed since the start of the ceasefire. Under the terms of the deal, Israel was obligated to withdraw its forces from southern Lebanon under the ceasefire. It pulled out from all but five so-called 'strategic' posts located several hundred meters inside Lebanon, which it says are necessary to defend Israeli communities.
Nahar Net
2 hours ago
- Politics
- Nahar Net
Israel authorizes more settlements in occupied West Bank
by Naharnet Newsdesk 29 May 2025, 12:41 Israel said Thursday it would establish 22 Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, including the legalization of outposts already built without government authorization. Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip meanwhile killed at least 13 people overnight, local health officials said. Israel captured the West Bank, along with Gaza and east Jerusalem, in the 1967 Mideast war and the Palestinians want all three territories for their future state. Most of the international community views settlements as illegal and an obstacle to resolving the decades-old conflict. Defense Minister Israel Katz said the settlement decision "strengthens our hold on Judea and Samaria," using the biblical term for the West Bank, "anchors our historical right in the Land of Israel, and constitutes a crushing response to Palestinian terrorism." He added it was also "a strategic move that prevents the establishment of a Palestinian state that would endanger Israel." Israel has already built well over 100 settlements across the territory that are home to some 500,000 settlers. The settlements range from small hilltop outposts to fully developed communities with apartment blocks, shopping malls, factories and public parks. The West Bank is home to 3 million Palestinians, who live under Israeli military rule with the Western-backed Palestinian Authority administering population centers. The settlers have Israeli citizenship. Israel has accelerated settlement construction in recent years — long before Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack ignited the war in Gaza — confining Palestinians to smaller and smaller areas of the West Bank and making the prospect of establishing a viable, independent state even more remote. During his first term, President Donald Trump's administration broke with decades of U.S. foreign policy by supporting Israel's claims to territory seized by force and taking steps to legitimize the settlements. Former President Joe Biden, like most of his predecessors, opposed the settlements but applied little pressure to Israel to curb their growth. The top United Nations court ruled last year that Israel's presence in the occupied Palestinian territories is unlawful and called on it to end, and for settlement construction to stop immediately. Israel denounced the non-binding opinion by a 15-judge panel of the International Court of Justice, saying the territories are part of the historic homeland of the Jewish people. Calls for settlements in war-ravaged Gaza Israel withdrew its settlements from the Gaza Strip in 2005, but leading figures in the current government have called for them to be re-established and for much of the Palestinian population of the territory to be resettled elsewhere through what they describe as voluntary emigration. Palestinians view such plans as a blueprint for their forcible expulsion from their homeland, and experts say the plans would likely violate international law. Israel now controls more than 70% of Gaza, according to Yaakov Garb, a professor of environmental studies at Ben Gurion University, who has examined Israeli-Palestinian land use patterns for decades. The area includes buffer zones along the border with Israel as well as the southern city of Rafah, which is now mostly uninhabited, and other large areas that Israel has ordered to be evacuated.
Nahar Net
2 hours ago
- Politics
- Nahar Net
Israel says Lebanese Army 'way more effective than expected' in disarming Hezbollah
by Naharnet Newsdesk 29 May 2025, 12:27 An Israeli army official has said that the Lebanese Army has been 'way more effective than expected' in removing Hezbollah's arms, adding that the Israeli army is 'pleased by this trend.' Lebanon's army has dismantled most of Hezbollah's posts and weapons stockpile in the country's south, with the help of Israeli intelligence passed along by the U.S., and Israeli and American officials are said to be pleasantly surprised by the progress, the Wall Street Journal has reported. But the report, which also cited Arab officials, noted that the Lebanese Army still faces the challenge of completing the job in the south and implementing its plan to disarm Hezbollah and assert control over the entire country. Israeli intelligence, delivered to the Lebanese state via the U.S., helped locate remaining Hezbollah caches and posts in the south, unidentified senior Arab officials told the newspaper. Some of the weapons were destroyed, others were kept for the army's own use. Senior Lebanese officials said Hezbollah has also been forced to give up control of Beirut's international airport. That has impacted Hezbollah's ability to bring in funds, according to the report.
Nahar Net
2 hours ago
- Politics
- Nahar Net
US ambassador's residence in Damascus reopened as countries mend ties
by Naharnet Newsdesk 29 May 2025, 12:37 The U.S. flag was hoisted Thursday outside of the long-shuttered ambassador's residence in Damascus, in a signing of growing ties between Washington and the new Syrian government. The U.S. ambassador to Turkey, Tom Barrack, who has also been appointed special envoy to Syria, arrived to inaugurate the residence, Syrian state-run news agency SANA reported. Washington hasn't formally reopened its embassy in Damascus, which closed in 2012 after protests against the government of then President Bashar Assad, met by a brutal crackdown, spiraled into civil war. Assad was unseated in December in a lightning rebel offensive. But Barrack's visit and the raising of the flag were a significant signal of warming relations. Washington was initially circumspect about Syria's new leaders, led by Ahmad al-Sharaa, the former leader of an Islamist insurgent group that the U.S. still lists as a terrorist organization. However, the Trump administration — encouraged by two U.S. allies in the region, Saudi Arabia and Turkey — has in recent weeks shown increasing openness to Damascus. Trump held a surprise meeting with al-Sharaa in Riyadh earlier this month, and the U.S. has begun to roll back decades of sanctions slapped on Syria under the Assad dynasty.
Nahar Net
16 hours ago
- Politics
- Nahar Net
Witkoff has 'very good feelings' about Gaza truce talks
by Naharnet Newsdesk 28 May 2025, 21:48 U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff said Wednesday he had "very good feelings" about a possible Gaza ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, adding that he expected to send out a new proposal imminently. "I have some very good feelings about getting to a long-term resolution, temporary cease fire, and a long-term resolution, a peaceful resolution of that conflict," Witkoff told reporters alongside President Donald Trump at the White House.
