Beirut (Lebanon) (AFP) – Israel and Lebanon agreed Wednesday to implement a ceasefire but said it would require a “complete cessation” of fire by Iran-backed Hezbollah, according to a joint statement after US-led talks in Washington. The two sides, which do not have formal diplomatic relations, also agreed to create “pilot zones” in which the Lebanese armed forces “will take exclusive control of the territory to the exclusion of all non-state actors”.
The development came despite continued cross-border attacks earlier in the day, with Hezbollah saying it targeted Israeli troops and Israeli strikes killing at least ten people in southern Lebanon. Just hours after the agreement was announced, air raid alarms sounded in northern Israel with a “suspicious aerial target” identified without causing any casualties. The joint statement said the ceasefire was “contingent on a complete cessation” of fire by Hezbollah as well as evacuation of the group’s operatives from southern Lebanon.
The meetings in Washington were the fourth round of direct talks by Lebanese and Israeli diplomats since fighting erupted on March 2, when Hezbollah renewed attacks against Israel in support of Iran. Both sides will meet for more talks the week of June 22, the statement said, “with a view toward reaching a comprehensive agreement”.
Earlier in the day, US President Donald Trump said he wanted to separate talks on the conflict in Lebanon and those on the war with Iran. Tehran, however, insists the conflicts are linked and its Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi warned that any attack on Beirut would trigger a “full-scale resumption” of war. The Israeli military said it intercepted a “hostile aircraft” and two projectiles that crossed into Israeli territory from Lebanon on Wednesday. Hezbollah, for its part, said that “in response to the Israeli enemy army’s violation of the ceasefire”, its fighters targeted soldiers in northern Israel with a rocket barrage.
Early Thursday, the pro-Iranian group said it aimed a “salvo of rockets” at Israeli soldiers and vehicles in the southern Lebanon town of Al-Qantara, and also targeted an Israeli command position near the Chqif Castle with two drones. A truce to halt the fighting in Lebanon was meant to take hold on April 17, but has never been observed, with both sides justifying their ongoing attacks by the other’s alleged violations. Senior Hezbollah official Mahmud Qomati had told AFP on Tuesday that the group would “not accept a partial ceasefire”.
Among the Israeli strikes on Wednesday was one targeting a car on the main highway out of the capital, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA) said. The NNA also reported strikes on more than 20 locations in the south, some after Israel’s military warned residents of several villages to evacuate. The Lebanese health ministry said an Israeli attack on Al-Hawsh near the city of Tyre killed four Syrians and two Palestinians. But an Israeli military spokesperson told AFP’s Jerusalem bureau that “we are not aware of any such attack having occurred in the area”.
The health ministry also said an Israeli strike elsewhere in the south targeted an ambulance, killing two paramedics from the Risala Scouts Association, which is affiliated with Hezbollah’s ally the Amal movement. The ministry circulated images of a badly damaged ambulance, with medical masks spilling out of the vehicle and scattered on the road. A third paramedic was later reported killed in an attack that the NNA said targeted an ambulance team affiliated with the Hezbollah-linked Islamic Health Committee in the town of Zibdine. At least 130 emergency and health workers have been killed since the fighting began.
Lebanon’s army said a soldier was also killed in an Israeli strike, while an officer and a soldier were wounded in a separate attack on a military vehicle. The force denounced what it called Israel’s “deliberate targeting of army personnel, vehicles and positions”.
© 2024 AFP
