Beirut, Lebanon. Hezbollah rejected a ceasefire plan announced by the United States after Lebanese and Israeli governments agreed to it in U.S.-mediated talks. Israel continued strikes in southern Lebanon on Thursday and said it would not withdraw from the south.
Ceasefire plan announced by Washington
The United States said on Wednesday that Lebanon and Israel had agreed to implement a ceasefire contingent on Iran-backed Hezbollah ceasing fire and evacuating its fighters from areas of southern Lebanon near the border.
Hezbollah rejects the proposal
Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem said the Lebanese Shi’ite Muslim group, which is not a party to the talks, rejected the Washington declaration. In a written statement, he described the negotiations as shameless and called the plan “a roadmap for the annihilation of a section of the Lebanese people and the enslavement of the rest.”
Qassem said, “As long as the occupation exists, the resistance will continue.”
Fighting since March
Hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel reignited on March 2, when the group opened fire in support of Tehran as it came under U.S.-Israeli attack. The war has continued despite several ceasefires declared from Washington since April.
Regional diplomatic pressure
The conflict has become a sticking point in diplomacy aimed at resolving the wider regional war. Tehran has demanded an end to Israeli attacks in Lebanon as part of any agreement.
Conditions set by Hezbollah and Iran
Qassem said any ceasefire must include southern Lebanon, where Israel has seized a self-declared security zone that it says is intended to protect northern Israel from Hezbollah attack.
He said towns in northern Israel would not be secure “as long as our villages are unsafe, bombed, destroyed, and our people are being killed.”
The commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Quds Force, which established Hezbollah in 1982, said “the minimum demand of the resistance” is for Israel to withdraw to the positions it held before the war began and before Israeli forces invaded the south.
