The mother of the 15-year-old Palestinian boy, Izz al-Din al-Lahaliya, embraced her son, who looked small and dazed in the gray prison uniform intended for adults, after spending a month in an Israeli prison.
The boy, who was accused of throwing stones, was reunited with his family on Thursday night in a touching scene documented by an Agence France-Presse photographer.
Ezzedine's mother held back her tears as she kissed his cheeks, while other children and women greeted men who had been released with him.
A scene interrupted by tear gas canisters fired by Israeli forces.
Al-Lahaliya, who is from the town of Sa'ir in the southern West Bank, met his family in the village of Al-Jib near Jerusalem, where the Israeli authorities usually release Palestinian detainees on Thursdays.
Since 1967, Israel has occupied the West Bank, where about 3 million Palestinians and 500,000 settlers live.
Izz al-Din's mother, Rania Jaradat, told Agence France-Presse: “After the Israelis took the prisoners out, and after we received them, they fired tear gas,” adding that the scene brought to mind the moment the soldiers took the boy from the family home on October 14, 2026.
She continued: “They were afraid that families would gather near the gate and celebrate.”
She pointed out that after Lahaliya was released, “the first thing he asked for was stuffed cabbage and shawarma,” noting that she rushed to fulfill his request.
The boy was released after the family paid a bail of 5,000 shekels (about 1,500 dollars).
As the eldest son among five siblings, his absence had a major impact on his younger siblings.
Ezz El-Din said: “They are happy with my return, but they were suffering throughout my absence from them.”
According to figures from the Addameer Foundation for Prisoner Care and Human Rights, 9,300 Palestinians are currently detained in Israeli prisons, including 350 minors.
Earlier this week, the Israeli army confirmed that it shot a 14-year-old boy who was part of a group of boys suspected of throwing stones at a passing car in the northern occupied West Bank.
Relaxing the rules for shooting at individuals suspected of throwing stones in 2022 resulted in a rise in the death toll among Palestinians, according to the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem.
The Lebanese army raided a warehouse of weapons and military ammunition in the Mushrifiyah area in the southern suburb of Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold. Although the warehouse is not affiliated with the party, as suggested by the army’s statement, which said that the raid was carried out after “a process of monitoring and following up on movements related to the transfer and trade of weapons,” its importance lies in the army’s movement within the area affiliated with the party in a step that brought back to the forefront the issue of the exclusivity of weapons in the hands of the state, and raised questions about the sources of the seized items and who they belong to.
The army reported that the operation resulted in the seizure of “a large quantity of weapons and military ammunition,” and that the seized items were handed over, while an investigation began with the detainee under the supervision of the competent judiciary.
The statement did not specify the identity of the warehouse owner or his affiliation to any party, leaving the determination of responsibilities and the direction of use of the weapons dependent on the results of the investigation. The army arrested a citizen whose name was coded with the letters “A.A.” Asharq Al-Awsat information said that the owner of the warehouse was from one of the families of the Chiyah region and he immediately disappeared from sight.
Proactive process and two messages
Retired Brigadier General Fadi Daoud, in a statement to Asharq Al-Awsat, said that the raid expresses a proactive security action, saying that “the army is working proactively, an operation built on monitoring and follow-up and not a reaction.” He stressed that “the statement talks about trafficking and transporting weapons, and does not attribute the warehouse to any party,” adding: “So we cannot place responsibility on a specific party pending the end of the investigation.” He pointed out that “the southern suburb is a crowded area, and an ammunition depot contains an immediate danger to the residents.”
Dawoud placed the raid in a broader context, noting that “this raid comes in the context of a fragile ceasefire, and the issue of the exclusivity of weapons in the hands of the state is being discussed internally and externally,” considering that it “carries a double message: to the inside that weapons are the sole jurisdiction of the state, and to the outside that the army is serious and capable.” Regarding the nature of the warehouse, he stressed that “it is true that there is no certainty about the identity of the owner, but this is not possible before the investigation, and the two hypotheses (a commercial network or an organized stock) remain open.” He included the process within a process that began with the government’s decision to monopolize weapons, stressing the importance of waiting for the results of the investigation and applying the same standard in all regions.
He added: “The army has proven its ability again, and it will continue this approach continuously and transparently. The state’s performance is a cumulative work that is measured over long periods, not a single process.”
Various weapons and possible sources
On the other hand, Mustafa Al-Asaad, a follower of military affairs, in an interview with Asharq Al-Awsat, started from the pictures of the weapons displayed to assess the nature of the seized items. It is likely that it reflects the activity of an experienced arms dealer, and not direct preparation for a military confrontation, ruling out that it is part of military weapons shipments that arrived from Iran to Lebanon.
He said, “The diversity of the weapons on display and their sources indicates that the merchant does not depend on a single source, but rather has a wide network of relationships that allows him to obtain different types of weapons.” He pointed out that some of the pistols shown in the photos were imported into Lebanon legally through well-known parties, while other pieces, according to his estimation, appear to be smuggled or stolen from Iraq.
He pointed out that some Glock pistols, especially the beige ones, resemble models used by the Iraqi security and military services, including the police, army, and special forces, which opens the possibility of their arrival via a smuggling route from Iraq to Syria and then Lebanon. But he warned against being certain about the source, saying, “It is not possible to determine the source of these pistols without examining the serial numbers and markings on them.”
He stopped when a gold-plated Kalashnikov rifle appeared, suggesting that among the merchant’s customers were enthusiasts who acquired distinctive weapons, not people necessarily seeking to use them in confrontations. He believed that the diversity and size shown in the pictures suggest long experience and extensive relationships in the arms trade, which he pointed out has had well-known networks in Lebanon for decades.
Bombs and night vision equipment
Al-Asaad pointed out the appearance of hand grenades and materials that can be used in manufacturing explosives, considering that the apparent quantities do not suggest an exceptional stock of explosive materials. He also pointed out that binoculars and night vision equipment are used militarily, but they are not alien to the arms market.
He talked about small machine-gun weapons that resemble pistols, including “Scorpion” models, that were historically used in assassination operations, including during the 1980s, but he stressed that their presence does not prove preparation for assassinations, as they may appeal to weapons collectors.
He compared the seizures shown in the photos with weapons seized by the army in previous raids in the Bekaa, which included missile launchers and anti-armour weapons, which is equipment more clearly linked to direct military use. He said that, in his estimation, the current photos do not show exceptional weapons that are difficult to find in the Lebanese market.
Efforts aimed at resuming direct dialogue between Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Hezbollah are halfway through, and will not reach their conclusion unless the party takes the initiative to approach the points of disagreement in a way that opens the door to its readiness to converge on commonalities that take into account not linking it to preconditions that do not receive a response from Aoun, especially with everything related to the decisions issued by the Council of Ministers that are directly related to the government’s adherence to the “Framework Agreement” and the exclusivity of weapons in the hands of the state.
Although Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri is the one who is at the forefront of the efforts aimed at resuming the dialogue between the two parties, and is encouraging the party to engage in it in a way that will reduce the level of tension in order to maintain civil peace, the fiery stances issued successively by its Secretary General Naim Qassem do not, as a ministerial source tells Asharq Al-Awsat, call for relief, despite the fact that Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam’s handling of the explosives shipment that was seized in Dahr Al-Baydar prevented the situation from exploding. And resorting to the street, and the prosecution of those responsible was entrusted before the military judiciary, while waiting to refer it to the Judicial Council, which was met with satisfaction among the party. Because the prosecution was limited to those involved, and the terrorism charge was not attached to them.
Adhering to the “Memorandum of Understanding” and dropping the “Framework Agreement”
The ministerial source pointed out that Qassem’s positions do not call for comfort insofar as they raise legitimate questions about the feasibility of his adherence to the American-Iranian “memorandum of understanding” and his failure to give up his weapons, in exchange for his insistence on dropping the “framework agreement,” even though the United States, through its Secretary of State Marco Rubio, refuses to link Lebanon to the memorandum, and therefore: where is the interest in keeping the country’s fate hanging on it, in light of the impossibility of implementing it in light of the exchange of threats between the two parties? Signatories?
He stressed that Qasim's positions remain under the umbrella of raising the morale of his partisans and his fans and strengthening their nerves. He asked: Where is his statement that the resistance prevented the Israeli army from advancing to Sidon? And that the “Memorandum of Understanding” was behind the reduction in Israeli attacks? The source said that his statements in this regard provided pretexts, not only for his opponents, but also for his popular support to ask him about the reasons behind not preventing the Israeli army from entering the cities of Bint Jbeil and Al-Khiam, and later to control the “Ali Al-Taher” hills, instead of leaving them to the Lebanese army and holding it responsible for defending them?
He saw that Qassem's populist stances backfired on him, and were not taken seriously, even by his fans and partisans. He asked: Where is the "Memorandum of Understanding" to reduce Israeli attacks spent, even though its signing between Tehran and Washington did not stop the expansion of the Israeli army to Beaufort Castle and a number of towns surrounding it, in addition to its control by fire over the largest part of the area north of the Litani River?
He refused to link Lebanon to Iranian positions
The source called on Hezbollah to stand up to the transformations in the region and stop being arrogant and denying that Lebanon is entering a new political phase other than the one that existed before Iran assigned Gaza. He said we are ready to extend a hand to him; Because the country cannot afford to involve it in the game of buying time and keeping it suspended, captive to Qassem’s bet that the defeat of US President Donald Trump in the midterm elections, as Qassem said, will reflect positively on the anti-Americans in the region, nor in his bet on Benjamin Netanyahu’s defeat in the Knesset elections in Israel.
Searching for an alternative force to UNIFIL
The source asked Qasim: Where are the countries that stand by you except Iran? What do you say to the consensus of the seven countries at the Paris meeting on the exclusive control of weapons in the hands of the state and filling the void resulting from the end of the mission of the International Emergency Forces (UNIFIL) in the south at the end of this year? He stressed that Rubio's meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron and his Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot opened the door again to searching for the nature of the force that is supposed to replace UNIFIL. He hopes for progress in the search for an alternative force, which calls for anticipation to find out what the United States representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Michael Waltz, has up his sleeve during his visit to Beirut, next Monday, and his meeting with Aoun. He said that Hezbollah had no choice but to engage in the state project and support the “Framework Agreement,” even though its implementation was still in a vicious circle, and that the bet remained on Washington’s intervention to pressure Israel to facilitate its implementation in stages.
Truce observers and the “Mechanisms” Committee
The source expected that the formation of the alternative force would have the cover of the United Nations, and that it would be closer to the role assigned to the observers of the Armistice Agreement signed between Lebanon and Israel in 1949. He said that there are no obstacles preventing their assistance after increasing their numbers and activating their role, as long as they are spread on both sides of the Lebanese-Israeli border and have two headquarters: the first in the Bir Hassan locality in the southern suburb of Beirut, and the second in occupied Jerusalem, ruling out the establishment of a civilian monitoring force tasked with verifying the situation. Deployment of the army in places from which Israel withdraws to prevent Hezbollah militants from being present there. He expected that supervision of the implementation of the army’s deployment would be entrusted to the “mechanism” committee, but in a new, distinctly American form.
