Israeli Press
Israel and Lebanon agree a shortlist of countries to verify Hezbollah's disarmament
Graphic: Times of Palestine
Original Reporting
Israel and Lebanon have agreed on a short list of countries whose forces could verify the disarmament of Hezbollah, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported Friday, citing a Lebanese official who spoke to the Reuters news agency and declined to name the states or say how many there are.
The United States is expected to pick the verifying countries from inside that agreed list, the official said. Beirut refused to let private security companies take any part in the work, and Israel and Washington vetoed France's inclusion. The next round of talks between the parties is set for early September.
The mechanism matters well beyond Lebanon. The same architecture — an outside force certifying that an armed movement has given up its weapons, with the United States choosing who does the certifying — sits at the center of the fifteen-point Gaza roadmap that Israel told Washington this week it will not accept as written.
What Lebanon is negotiating, in other words, is the template Gaza is being offered: who counts the weapons, who is trusted to count them, and what a government in the room can refuse. Beirut has so far won the point on private contractors and lost the point on France.
No Israeli official commented in the Haaretz account. Talks between the two states resumed in Rome last week, with some sessions cut short after Israeli strikes on Hezbollah positions in Lebanon.
