Hezbollah will never be allowed to threaten Israel again, says Israeli ambassador
Australia has joined other countries in expressing hope that the 60-day ceasefire between Israel and the Iranian-backed terrorist group would act as a catalyst for an end to the fighting in Gaza.
Israel was a peace-loving nation but it would never allow Hezbollah to rebuild its military power to threaten peace again, Israel’s ambassador to Australia Amir Maimon has declared after the historic ceasefire deal between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Australia has joined other countries in expressing hope that the 60-day ceasefire between Israel and the Iranian-backed terrorist group would act as a catalyst for an end to the fighting in Gaza and a circuit-breaker in the Middle East.
But opposition foreign affairs spokesman Simon Birmingham criticised the Albanese government, suggesting the ceasefire would not have occurred on favourable terms for Israel if Israel had listened to the government’s “misguided support” for a ceasefire earlier in the conflict.
“In contrast to the one-sided ceasefire that Labor and the Greens have called for, this ceasefire rightly requires Hezbollah to meet one of the key requirements of the 2006 UN Resolution 1701 and to withdraw from the border area of southern Lebanon,” Senator Birmingham said.
“What Minister Wong failed to mention was the importance that this is a ceasefire in which a terrorist organisation has committed to withdraw.”
Senator Birmingham said that forcing the backdown from Hezbollah was only possible because Israel was able to act from a position of strength. “The Coalition has consistently called out the Albanese Labor government’s misguided support for motions promoting ceasefires which fail to properly address the threats posed by terrorist actors,” he said.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong welcomed the ceasefire, saying it was “a critical step for alleviating immense human suffering and ensuring displaced communities on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border can return home”.
“An end to the violence in Lebanon will also assist in de-escalating heightened tensions in the region,” Senator Wong said.
“An end to the violence in Lebanon must also be a catalyst for an end to the war in Gaza.”
Mr Maimon declined to comment on Senator Wong’s previous calls for an early ceasefire but said Hezbollah’s weakness was a result of Israel’s carefully calibrated and intensive assault of recent months.
“We’re a peace-loving nation, despite what some people and some nations may think about Israel. So we’re not seeking more war,” he told The Australian.
“During the last few months, we managed to severely, severely harm Hezbollah, to successfully destroy a high percentage of their missile stocks and on top of everything, we managed to eliminate their senior leadership, their chain of command, their tunnels and their infrastructure.
“We will not allow them to rebuild their military power. We will not allow them to dig tunnels. We will not allow them to manufacture missiles and we will not allow any transfer of arms from external territory towards Lebanon.”
Mr Maimon said this week’s decision by the International Criminal Court to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant was absurd.
“It is absurd the prime minister and the minister for defence of a democratic country, a country that was brutally attacked on October 7, are now under a court order. I don’t have any word other than anti-Semitism to describe it, pure anti-Semitism,” he said.
Mr Maimon declined to comment on the government’s reaction to the decision where it said it would “respect” the court’s ruling.
US President Joe Biden said the ceasefire deal heralded a “new start” for Lebanon and that it was designed “to be a permanent cessation of hostilities”, and Hezbollah would “not be allowed to threaten the security of Israel again”.
“This deal supports Lebanon’s sovereignty,” Mr Biden said. “So it heralds a new start for Lebanon.
“If fully implemented, this deal can put Lebanon on a path toward a future that’s worthy of its significant past.”
Jewish groups in Australia also welcomed the ceasefire, under which hostilities will cease while Hezbollah and Israeli troops withdraw from southern Lebanon.
The move will allow 60,000 Israelis to return to their homes in the country’s north while several hundred thousand Lebanese will also be able to return to their homes in southern Lebanon.
An international panel to monitor the ceasefire will be headed by the US, while thousands of additional UN peacekeepers and Lebanese troops will deploy to southern Lebanon.
But Israel said it would resume hostilities with Hezbollah if the terrorists broke the terms of the agreement.
“We will respond forcefully to any violation” of the ceasefire by Hezbollah, Mr Netanyahu said.
He defended the ceasefire in the face of criticism from right-wingers in his coalition who believed Israel should have continued to fight Hezbollah until the group was all but destroyed.
Mr Netanyahu said Hezbollah had been set back “decades” because of Israel’s intensive offensive in recent months, which included remote control attacks on Hezbollah-issued pagers and walkie-talkies and the assassination of long-time leader Hassan Nasrallah and several of his successors.
The agreement went into force at 1pm on Wednesday (AEDT) after the Israeli cabinet voted for the deal 10-1.
The Executive Council of Australian Jewry said it hoped the ceasefire would now allow the “full force” of Israeli power devoted to liberating the remaining hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.
“Israel has agreed to a ceasefire with Hezbollah from a position of great strength,” co-chief executive Alex Ryvchin said. “Hezbollah no longer controls south Lebanon from which it waged war and shattered the lives of Israel’s northern communities,” he said.
AIJAC executive director Colin Rubenstein welcomed the ceasefire but said Hezbollah would need to be monitored carefully to ensure it did not breach its clauses.
“We know from bitter experience that Israel’s enemies systematically violate legal obligations with zero pushback by the international community,” he said. “We hope it will be different this time, and innocent civilians on both sides of the border can rebuild and return to their homes, free from the Hezbollah terrorist threat.”
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