Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu announced that he is on a historic and spiritual mission, firmly holding onto the vision of Greater Israel. The Israeli army is currently executing the second phase of the Gideon Vehicles plan, which involves occupying Gaza City and implementing a plan to deport its residents. Simultaneously, the settlement plan to separate the northern and southern sectors of the West Bank has been approved, effectively eliminating any chance of establishing a Palestinian state.

On the Syrian front, after the Israeli army stormed the demilitarized zone in the Golan Heights and seized it, including Mount Hermon and dozens of villages in the Golan, Quneitra, and Daraa, it has occupied more than 1,000 square kilometers of highly strategic Syrian territory. This grants Israel superior reconnaissance, radar, and fire control over southern Syria, just 25 km from Damascus, which is now under Israeli fire control.

Israel’s seizure of the strategic Mount Hermon Heights, the main source of the Jordan River, allows it to tighten its grip on the river’s sources, marking a major step in its aggressive water expansion strategy. This also includes controlling the Yarmouk River sources and stealing its water resources for Israel’s benefit, amid complete neglect and shameful passivity from the current Damascus authority regarding these catastrophic facts.

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The situation in Lebanon is no less catastrophic; the resistance axis, severely weakened after Syria’s fall and the cutoff of supply lines, has also suffered heavy losses following the martyrdom of Hassan Nasrallah and many party leaders and cadres, along with severe depletion of its weapons stockpiles. All these factors have placed Hezbollah in a difficult transitional phase.

Israel, fully aware of this, refused to fully withdraw from southern Lebanon and insisted on remaining in five strategic border points indefinitely: Al-Awida Hill, Al-Hammas Hill, Jabal Balat, Al-Labbouna, and Al-Azziya. All are strategic points controlling vast areas of southern Lebanon, securing Israeli settlements in northern Palestine.

In all these five points, the Israeli enemy army has begun to establish permanent military fortifications, surrounded by barbed wire, mines, concrete walls, and equipped with surveillance cameras and remote sensing devices, exploiting their high altitude overlooking its settlements in northern Palestine and all southern Lebanon entrances.

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At this stage, with all its data, the United States, in full coordination with its ally Israel, presented a paper demanding the disarmament of armed factions in Lebanon, primarily Hezbollah, in exchange for Israeli withdrawal from occupied Lebanese points and cessation of Israeli strikes on Lebanon. Between threats and warnings, the American mediator told Lebanese officials that the region is moving fast and they will be left behind. He also pointed to unprecedented dialogues between the current Syrian authority and Israel.

Israel, coordinating the pressure exerted by the US on Lebanon on its behalf, rejected Lebanon’s demand for withdrawal first. The American envoy bluntly told Lebanese officials that Washington cannot force Israel to do anything unless Lebanon commits to disarmament and confines weapons solely to the Lebanese army.

Further pressuring Lebanon, the US administration announced plans to end the UN peacekeeping forces (UNIFIL) in southern Lebanon by cutting their funding, claiming their ineffectiveness. This decision will serve Israel when its army invades southern Lebanon to occupy it.

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The US and Israel are pushing Lebanon towards two alternatives benefiting Israel:

First: Increasing internal Lebanese division by deepening differences among its parties and isolating Hezbollah and its supporters from other Lebanese components, portraying them as responsible for the loss of Israeli withdrawal opportunities, the loss of promised American and Western economic aid, and the continued deterioration of Lebanon’s economy.

Second: Maintaining the status quo, with Hezbollah holding onto its weapons, and the Lebanese state unable or unwilling to engage in a bloody confrontation that could ignite civil and regional war. This would provide Israel with a pretext to launch devastating strikes on Lebanon and conduct a comprehensive military invasion of southern Lebanon under the guise of destroying Hezbollah strongholds and securing its northern borders and settlements.

This Israeli war on Lebanon will be a key step in implementing part of the Greater Israel plan, which Netanyahu said he is tasked with. The closest victim for the first steps of this plan is not Egypt or Jordan, whose armies are already mobilized, but Lebanon, which will inevitably be the next target of the Zionist entity’s army, which has long set its border with Lebanon at the Litani River.

This was confirmed by the entity’s foreign minister who said: If the world fails to pull Hezbollah beyond the Litani River, Israel will do so. In contrast, the Lebanese Speaker of Parliament said it is easier to move the Litani River to the Israeli border than to move Hezbollah beyond the river. This aligns with the fact that most military sites and infrastructure established by Hezbollah lie south of the Litani River near northern Palestine’s border.

The upcoming Israeli invasion of Lebanon will move the Zionist entity’s border northward to the southern bank of the Litani River, allowing Israel to seize approximately 750 million cubic meters of fresh water annually and divert part of it to northern occupied Palestine to supply its settlements, which also rely on water forcibly taken from Lebanon’s Wazzani and Hasbani rivers.

Given all the above, confining weapons to the Lebanese state becomes an undeniable right only when the Lebanese army is strong and equipped, Lebanon is stable, its borders secured, and its land unviolated by the hostile Zionist enemy. If these conditions are unmet, then calls for disarmament are a falsehood serving American and Zionist dictates, and the powerless are humiliated.

Professor and International Economy and Logistics Advisor