Lebanon using Israeli intel to dismantle Hezbollah infrastructure: Report

The Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) has been using Israeli intelligence to dismantle Hezbollah infrastructure south of the Litani River in southern Lebanon, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on 28 May. The Lebanese army’s efforts to implement UN Resolution 1701 and enforce the ceasefire agreement are being carried out “in part with the help of Israeli intelligence,” according to several sources cited by the WSJ. Arab officials told the outlet that the intelligence is being “passed along by the US” and has “helped the Lebanese army find and destroy Hezbollah’s remaining weapons stockpiles and military posts in the south.” The army reportedly destroys some of the weapons while keeping others and adding them to its limited stockpiles.

In an interview with the WSJ, Lebanon’s Prime Minister Nawaf Salam claimed that the Lebanese army has achieved 80 percent of its disarmament goals in southern Lebanon – referring to the area south of the Litani River, where Hezbollah has cooperated with the state in handing over military positions.

Under heavy pressure from Washington, the Lebanese government has been escalating calls for a full “monopoly” on arms. This includes a plan to disarm Lebanon-based Palestinian resistance groups, which is reportedly set to begin in June.

Hezbollah has firmly rejected disarmament, and instead calls for the formation of a national defensive strategy that incorporates its weapons into the state for use in defending Lebanon against Israel.

It says it is willing to hold dialogue with the state on this issue once Israeli forces withdraw from south Lebanon and stop their violations of the ceasefire. In a speech on Sunday, Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem said that the resistance is giving the state a chance to diplomatically secure an Israeli troop withdrawal and a complete halt to airstrikes, but stressed that “if it fails to perform its duties, other options exist.”

Israel was meant to withdraw its troops as part of the ceasefire, but has maintained an occupation of five locations along the border in violation of the deal. […] The Israeli army unleashed a violent wave of airstrikes across southern and eastern Lebanon on the evening of 22 May, striking what it claimed were Hezbollah weapons sites.

I’m very confused by this article, there’s like at least three contradictions in it.

• Hezbollah is simultaneously “cooperating with the state in handing over military positions” and weapons but seems to be only willing “to hold dialogue with the state on [incorporating its weapons into the state for use in defending Lebanon against Israel] once Israel withdraws from Lebanon (and they have not yet done so)”?
• Hezbollah is simultaneously 80% disarmed by the Lebanon army with the aid of Israeli intelligence, but Israel is also just striking (what they claim to be) Hezbollah weapon sites instead of allowing them to be disarmed?
• Hezbollah simultaneously expects the Lebanese army to engage in combat to defend Lebanon, but that very same army is fully cooperating with Israel to the extent of receiving intelligence reports on how to disarm them, and that government is refusing to insist that Israel must withdraw from its positions south of the Litani?

I’m welcome to other viewpoints, but this doesn’t seem like a tenable position. My prediction of how the Lebanon conflict proceeds is something along the lines of:

1. This disarmament process proceeds and is completed (to an arbitrary extent; the tunnel networks probably won’t or maybe can’t be dismantled and perhaps Hezbollah retains fighting ability in certain regions)
2. Israel continues to refuse to retreat, and indeed insists on taking more territory ala Syria
3. The Lebanese army, both infiltrated and cooperative with Israel, is quickly crushed to the extent that it resists at all
4. Guerrilla tactics to repel Israel (with the support of the population) will resume, basically taking us back 30 years; perhaps Lebanese soldiers desert to join or rejoin Hezbollah
5. As this is unacceptable to a comprador Lebanese government, some sort of internal unrest up to and including a civil war takes place (I have no idea how this would go, but I cannot imagine that the population of Lebanon would rise up in support of a government that is explicitly saying that they must fight the people who are protecting them from Israel, the country that has both been extensively bombing them and has killed hundreds of thousands of people)
6. An increasingly powerful Iran (backed by China and feeling gradually less pressure by the US/Israel as those countries continue imperial decline and neoliberal internal rot) is able to exert more influence and get more weapons shipments through an increasing unstable Syria

It’s been long enough that I can safely conclude that the plan by Israel post-Nasrallah appears to be to try and achieve what they have failed to do militarily by instead doing some good old-fashioned deals. For whatever ideological and material reasons, several people and groups, including Lebanon’s government, Syria’s government (though those guys are just outright compradors put in power by Israel), and perhaps Iraq (at least, I haven’t heard much about the Iraqi resistance groups in a while) seem to be going along with those deals, not understanding that the US and Israel cannot be trusted and will break those deals whenever they want, if it benefits them to do so.

I don’t think this work in the medium-to-long term, Israel’s existence is now fundamentally on a timer because of the declining military and economic power of their backers in the imperial core and without them, the country just does not have the military strength, economic power, or just outright geographical area to exert its whims on the region for decades to come. It might work in the short-term though, perhaps long enough for them to complete their 2.4 million person genocide.

We shall see if Hezbollah, Syria, and Iraq can reassert themselves in time to save the remaining Gazans; but for now, Hamas and Yemen are the lone warriors left. Yemen is still striking Israel with missiles despite Israeli return strikes (I doubt Israel’s strikes will be remotely effective if the US Navy couldn’t do shit to them), and Hamas has recently posted new videos of ambushes on Israel forces, so we can conclude that despite the occasional death of Hamas leaders or commanders, their military structures remain intact and effective. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re gaining more soldiers than they’re losing; many people in there must be making the calculation that it’s better to fight back and very possibly die, rather than just accept certain death by either bombing or starvation.