Yesterday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered his government to immediately begin direct peace negotiations with the Lebanese government. The goal is straightforward: full Hezbollah disarmament south of the Litani River and the establishment of peaceful relations between the two states. This is not diplomatic theater. It is the logical conclusion of a campaign that first destroyed Hezbollah’s offensive capacity and is now converting that battlefield success into a permanent strategic advantage.

Let me be direct. Hezbollah began this war with an arsenal of 130,000 to 150,000 rockets and missiles; successive Israeli operations have cut that stockpile to between 11,000 and 13,000 projectiles. The Israel Defense Forces report destruction of 85 to 90 percent of launch infrastructure, figures corroborated by the Wall Street Journal and the Alma Research Center.

Since Hezbollah opened its support front for Hamas on October 8, 2023, it has fired more than 3,500 rockets, missiles, drones, and mortars into Israel, displacing over 60,000 Israeli civilians from the northern border for nearly two and a half years.

Hezbollah never acted as a “legitimate Lebanese resistance movement”. It functioned as a parallel state with its own command structure, veto power over governments, and direct funding from the........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)