Ceasefire hopes rise
\nAccording to US official the the full ceasefire to be possible within a week as there are few hurdles to be resolved
\n beirut
\nIsrael is moving towards a ceasefire in the war with Hezbollah but there are still issues to address, its government said on Monday, while two senior Lebanese officials voiced guarded optimism of a deal soon even as Israeli strikes pounded Lebanon.
\nAxios, citing an unnamed senior US official, said Israel and Lebanon had agreed to the terms of a deal, and that Israel\u2019s security cabinet was expected to approve the deal on Tuesday.
\nIsrael\u2019s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, said of a ceasefire: \u201cWe haven\u2019t finalised it yet, but we are moving forward.\u201d Asked for comment, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s office said it had nothing to say about the report. Hostilities have intensified in parallel with the diplomatic flurry: Over the weekend, Israel carried out powerful airstrikes, one of which killed at least 29 people in central Beirut\u2013while the Iran-backed Hezbollah unleashed one of its biggest rocket salvoes yet on Sunday, firing 250 missiles.
\nIn Beirut, Israeli airstrikes levelled more of the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs on Monday, sending clouds of debris billowing over the Lebanese capital. Efforts to clinch a truce appeared to advance last week when US mediator Amos Hochstein declared significant progress after talks in Beirut before holding meetings in Israel and then returning to Washington.
\n\u201cWe are moving in the direction towards a deal, but there are still some issues to address,\u201d Israeli government spokesperson David Mencer said, without elaborating. Michael Herzog, the Israeli ambassador in Washington, told Israel\u2019s GLZ radio an agreement was close and \u201cit could happen within days … We just need to close the last corners\u201d, according to a post on X by GLZ senior anchorman Efi Triger. In Beirut, Deputy Parliament Speaker Elias Bou Saab said a decisive moment was approaching and expressed cautious optimism.
\n\u201cThe balance is slightly tilted towards there being (an agreement), but by a very small degree, because a person like Netanyahu cannot be trusted,\u201d he said in a news conference. A second senior Lebanese official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Beirut had not received any new Israeli demands from US mediators, who were describing the atmosphere as positive and saying \u201cthings are in progress\u201d.
\nThe official told Reuters a ceasefire could be clinched this week. The conflict between Israel and Hezbollah spiralled into full-scale war in September when Israel went on the offensive, pounding wide areas of Lebanon with airstrikes and sending troops into the south.
\nIsrael has dealt major blows to Hezbollah, killing its leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and other top commanders and inflicting massive destruction in areas of Lebanon where the group holds sway.
\nDiplomacy has focused on restoring a ceasefire based on UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended a 2006 Hezbollah-Israel war. It requires Hezbollah to pull its fighters back around 30 km (19 miles) from the Israeli border.
\nEnforcement
\nIsraeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said the test for any agreement would be in the enforcement of two main points. \u201cThe first is preventing Hezbollah from moving southward beyond the Litani (River), and the second, preventing Hezbollah from rebuilding its force and rearming in all of Lebanon,\u201d Saar said in broadcast remarks to the Israeli parliament.
\nFar-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said Israel must press on with the war until \u201cabsolute victory\u201d. Addressing Netanyahu on X, he said \u201cit is not too late to stop this agreement!\u201d But Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter said Israel should reach an agreement in Lebanon. \u201cIf we say \u2018no\u2019 to Hezbollah being south of the Litani, we mean it,\u201d he told journalists.
\nHezbollah leader Sheikh Naim Qassem said last week that the group had reviewed and given feedback on the US ceasefire proposal, and any truce was now in Israel\u2019s hands. Branded a terrorist group by the United States, the heavily armed, Shi\u2019ite Muslim Hezbollah has endorsed Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri of the Shi\u2019ite Amal movement to negotiate.
\nIsrael says its aim is to secure the return home of tens of thousands of people evacuated from its north due to rocket attacks by Hezbollah, which opened fire in support of Hamas at the start of the Gaza war in October 2023. Israel\u2019s offensive has forced more than 1 million people from their homes in Lebanon. Diplomacy has focused on restoring a ceasefire based on UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended a 2006 Hezbollah-Israel war. It requires Hezbollah to pull its fighters back around 30 km (19 miles) from the Israeli border, and the regular Lebanese army to deploy into the frontier region.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ceasefire hopes rise According to US official the the full ceasefire to be possible within a week as there are few hurdles to be resolved beirut Israel is moving towards a ceasefire in the war with Hezbollah but there are still issues to address, its government said on Monday, while two senior Lebanese officials voiced […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":445761,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-445740","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n