Exclusive: An Obvious Attempt by “The Party” to Reproduce “Green Without Borders”
Source: Lebanese Forces Website Team
It has been reported that the statement issued by “The Party” regarding “the launch of Al-Mahdi Scouts in coordination with the Jihad Al-Binaa Foundation for a tree-planting campaign to enhance green cover in the villages and towns in the southern border area, including planting trees and providing the necessary care for their continued growth,” caught the attention of several local and international monitoring sources. This was “based on a previous experience with the ‘Green Without Borders’ association, which the United States imposed sanctions on in August 2023, accusing it and its president of supporting and covering the activities of ‘The Party’ in southern Lebanon.”
The same sources recall, in this context, that “the U.S. State Department considered that the ‘Green Without Borders’ association, whose declared goal is to preserve natural spaces and plant trees, is in reality a ‘cover for the activities of The Party’ along the Blue Line. It operates several sites run by its members at dozens of points, which are used as cover for underground storage and tunnels where The Party stores munitions and trains its members in weapons and patrol operations.”
The sources, via the Lebanese Forces website, further state that “the U.S. State Department believes that since the establishment of the ‘Green Without Borders’ association in 2013, it has used its resources to support The Party’s activities. It has been officially linked to Jihad Al-Binaa, a company affiliated with The Party. The cooperation between The Party and the association has been widely documented by the media, especially the official media outlets affiliated with The Party.” They also note that the president of ‘Green Without Borders,’ Sobhi Nahla, admitted, according to the U.S. State Department, that the role of his NGO is to “provide a wall of protection for The Party,” and he has repeatedly acknowledged his and the association’s affiliation with The Party.
Additionally, according to the same sources, “Israel has long claimed that ‘Green Without Borders’ has been linked to The Party for many years, and the Israeli military has accused The Party of establishing observation points under the guise of environmental activities. They stated that ‘Green Without Borders’ is not here to plant trees but serves as a front for The Party.”
In this context, the sources argue that “many questions can be raised regarding a possible connection between the previous activities of ‘Green Without Borders’ along the border with Israel, Israel’s burning of green spaces during the last war along the border with Lebanon to secure better surveillance and detect infiltration attempts, and the recent statement by The Party about restarting the tree-planting campaign along the southern border with Israel, which has now become a scorched land in many areas.”
The same sources do not rule out, according to information, that “The Party’s statement about launching the new tree-planting campaign on the southern border will be monitored by the ceasefire monitoring committee, as well as by Lebanese authorities, to prevent any disruption or instability in the fragile situation along the southern border and in the context of monitoring the implementation of Security Council Resolution 1701 and strengthening the ceasefire agreement.” They emphasize that “everyone knows that the situation does not allow any trickery from here or any obvious attempt from there, such as The Party attempting to reproduce a new ‘Green Without Borders’ and drag Lebanon into a new destructive adventure. The border area is exclusively under the control of the state and the Lebanese army, and any activity in it, of any kind, must be subject to the authority, monitoring, and oversight of the state and the army in full.”