Israeli official met Lebanese foreign minister in Moscow, report says

AP Photo/Hussein Malla

In this Thursday, Dec. 13, 2018 photo, UN peacekeepers hold their flag while standing next to Hezbollah and Lebanese flags, at the site where Israeli excavators are working, near the southern border village of Mays al-Jabal, Lebanon

‘Israel does not view Lebanon as an enemy, but will not hesitate to strike Iran, Hezbollah targets’

Lebanese Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil reportedly met with a senior Israeli official in Moscow to discuss a dispute over the two countries’ maritime border, London-based Elaph news agency said Thursday.

According to the report, a senior source said the two diplomats discussed regional issues of “mutual interest” including Syria and the issue of Iranian weapons in Lebanon during a meeting that lasted two hours.

The Israeli official reportedly stressed to Bassil that Israel does not see Lebanon as an enemy, but “will not hesitate to strike Iranian or Hezbollah targets in Lebanon.”

Israel has long warned against Hezbollah’s military buildup in southern Lebanon and Syria, and preventing further reinforcements to their arsenal from Iran has been a major focus of Israeli military action in Syria in the last few years.

Conversely, the Lebanese minister was said to have asked Israel to stop threatening Lebanon over Hezbollah, insisting that Hezbollah is one of the factions that make up Lebanon and the Lebanese state ensures accommodation of all parties and groups under its sovereignty.

The issue of American sanctions on Lebanon was also risen, with the source claiming Bassil asked Israel to mediate in talks with the United States to convince Washington to postpone their decision to impose sanctions on Lebanon.

Earlier this month, US officials announced sanctions on a Lebanese network accused of laundering millions of dollars for “drug kingpins” and helping finance Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Shiite movement that Washington labels a terrorist organization.

The sanctions are part of the administration’s “unprecedented campaign to prevent Hezbollah and its global terror affiliates from profiting off violence, corruption, and the drug trade,” Treasury under secretary Sigal Mandelker said.

President Donald Trump’s administration has accused Iran of taking provocative measures to destabilize the Middle East.

It has increased sanctions on the Islamic Republic in order to undercut its revenues and to financially squeeze regional allies like Hezbollah.

His administration took an unprecedented step last week in designating Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard as a “foreign terrorist organization.”

Caught up in the US administration’s Iranian crackdown, Hezbollah has found itself under increasing international pressure with the United Kingdom recently blacklisting the group- including its political wing- as a terror organization.

Israeli officials welcomed the decision by the UK, who joined  Israel, the United States, Canada and the Netherlands in the terror designation.

Enduring enemies

Lebanon and Israel are technically still at war, but the border has remained relatively calm in recent years.

Hezbollah is the only movement to refuse to give up its weapons after Lebanon’s civil war between 1975 and 1990.

There are concerns that, as the civil war draws slowly to a close in Syria, battle-hardened Hezbollah militants will be coming back to Lebanon.

At the beginning of this year, Israel concluded an operation to unearth and destroy tunnels which the army accused Hezbollah of digging across the border from Lebanon.

IDF

Israeli soldiers support operation “Northern Shield” at the border with Lebanon, December 8th, 2018

“Operation ‘Northern Shield’ deprived Hezbollah of the unique offensive abilities it had built for years as part of its planned attack on Israeli territory. Denying Hezbollah this ability harmed the terrorist organization’s ability to carry out its plans while also improving the security situation in the northern arena and removing a threat from Israeli citizens,” the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).

Israel laid blame on the Lebanese government for the Hezbollah tunnels, asserting that “the Lebanese government is responsible for everything happening in its territory.”

And in March, Israel claimed it uncovered a Hezbollah network in the Syrian Golan working to carry out intelligence gathering for “terrorist operations” on the border with Israel.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanayhu said that the network’s unveiling was only the “tip of the iceberg” of what Israel knows about Iran’s “aggression against Israel.”

“I have a clear message for Iran and for Hezbollah: Israel knows what you’re doing; Israel knows where you’re doing it. What we’ve uncovered today is just the tip of the iceberg. We know a lot more,” Netanyahu said.

“Israel will continue to do all that’s necessary to defend itself,” he warned, referring to both “overt and covert means to block Iran’s effort to use Syria, Lebanon and Gaza as forward bases for attacking Israel.

The United States has said repeatedly that it will continue to support Israel’s right to defend itself against Iran and Hezbollah, including through targeted strikes in Syria, in the wake of its decision to remove American forces from the country.