The pro-Iran Hizbullah movement rejected a new ceasefire in Lebanon on Thursday and Israel said it would not withdraw troops from the country, undermining US president Donald Trump’s efforts to halt fighting there to forge peace with Tehran.
Iran has made a ceasefire in Lebanon a condition for any peace deal with Washington, and has suggested in recent days that it could intervene directly in support of its proxy Hizbullah if Israel keeps up or escalates attacks there.
Lebanese president Joseph Aoun said the ceasefire would come into force within 24 hours of all concerned parties approving it. However, Hizbullah leader Naim Qassem rejected the Washington declaration, insisting “resistance will continue”.
There was no immediate response from Israel, Lebanon or the US to Qassem’s remarks. Hizbullah is not a party to the US-brokered agreement reached between Israel and the Lebanese government on Wednesday, but would be required to halt attacks.
RM Block
Israel kept up strikes in southern Lebanon on Thursday and minister for defence Israel Katz said Israeli forces would not be withdrawing from the area or halting operations in the country, which they invaded in March in parallel with the war in Iran.
The commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Quds Force – which established Hizbullah in 1982 – said “the minimum demand of the resistance” was Israel’s withdrawal to positions it held before the war began.
“Our initial condition for accepting a ceasefire in the regional war was a ceasefire on all fronts, including Lebanon,” a separate statement from the Guards said.
Israel must stop its attacks in Lebanon, evacuate the areas it occupies and retreat behind international borders, said the statement, carried by state media on Thursday.
Hostilities between Hizbullah and Israel reignited on March 2nd, when the group opened fire in support of Tehran as it came under US-Israeli attack. The war has continued despite several ceasefires declared from Washington since April.
The attempt to reach a ceasefire in Lebanon comes after a flare-up in violence across the region that put Trump’s efforts to end the war in new jeopardy. Iranian and US forces traded attacks in the Gulf on Wednesday in one of the most intense bouts of fighting since a separate ceasefire halted large-scale US-Israeli bombing of Iran in early April.
[ Israeli strikes kill at least 10 people in Gaza, medics sayOpens in new window ]
Iranian forces struck Kuwait, damaging its airport and injuring dozens of people, authorities said, while the US military carried out strikes near the Strait of Hormuz. The strait, through which a fifth of the global oil and liquefied natural gas supplies normally flow, remains largely closed more than three months after the US and Israel launched their strikes on Iran.
Oil prices fell by about 3 per cent on Thursday on hopes that a Lebanon ceasefire could help Washington and Iran find a diplomatic way to end their war.
Last week, Iran and the US signalled progress towards a tentative initial agreement to halt the war and reopen the strait, but the two sides have yet to sign off on the deal, which would leave more complex negotiations for later.
In addition to Tehran conditioning a deal on an end to fighting in Lebanon, it also wants access to billions of dollars in oil revenue, waivers on sanctions on crude exports, a lifting of a US blockade on its ports and leverage over the strait.
Trump has said his top priority is to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Iran says its atomic programme is for peaceful purposes.
The UN nuclear watchdog sent a report to member states on Thursday repeating its calls on Iran to urgently inform the agency of the fate of its enriched uranium since its atomic sites were bombed a year ago and let inspections resume fully. – Reuters
