The Israeli security cabinet must decide on Tuesday on a ceasefire after two months of war against Hezbollah in Lebanon, while the United States spoke of a close agreement, while calling for caution.
The United States, the European Union and the UN have increased efforts in recent days to impose a truce between Israel and the Lebanese Islamist movement supported by Iran, which entered into open war at the end of September after months of exchanges of fire on the sidelines of the Israeli offensive in Gaza.
Israel has “no excuse” to refuse a ceasefire, said Tuesday the head of diplomacy of the European Union, Josep Borrell. “Hopefully today (Benjamin) Netanyahu’s government will approve the ceasefire agreement,” he added.
After increasing strikes on Monday on the southern suburbs of Beirut, the army on Tuesday called on residents of two of these neighborhoods to evacuate.
The Israeli security cabinet “will decide on Tuesday evening” on a ceasefire agreement, an Israeli official told AFP on condition of anonymity on Monday.
“We think we have reached the point where we are close” to an agreement, declared John Kirby, the spokesperson for the National Security Council of the White House, while emphasizing that nothing was yet certain.
“We think the discussions are going in a very positive direction. But nothing is concluded until everything is concluded,” he warned.
Also very involved in mediation efforts, the French presidency affirmed Monday that discussions on a ceasefire had “advanced significantly”.
The war that has been raging since October 2023 in the Gaza Strip between Israel and Hamas has spread to Lebanon since September, after a year of exchanges of fire on both sides of the border between the Israeli army and Hezbollah, ally of the Palestinian Islamist movement. Tens of thousands of civilians have been displaced in the border regions of northern Israel and southern Lebanon.
– “Tunnels, rockets” –
According to the American news site Axios, the agreement is based on an American project providing for a 60-day truce during which Hezbollah and the Israeli army would withdraw from southern Lebanon to allow the Lebanese army to deploy there.
It includes the establishment of an international committee to monitor its application, added Axios, specifying that the United States would have given assurances of its support for Israeli military action in the event of hostile acts by Hezbollah.
The mediation is based on UN Security Council Resolution 1701 which ended the previous war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006, and which stipulates that only the Lebanese army and peacekeepers can be deployed to the southern border of Lebanon.
However, Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said a ceasefire would be “a big mistake.”
Israel says it wants to neutralize Hezbollah in southern Lebanon to secure its border and allow the return of 60,000 displaced residents.
The Shiite movement, which has suffered severe blows since September with the death of several of its leaders, has assured that it will continue to fight Israel as long as the offensive in Gaza continues, while saying it is open to a cease-fire. fire.
Hezbollah fired at least 30 projectiles at Israel on Monday, according to the army.
According to the Ministry of Health, nearly 3,800 people have been killed in Lebanon since October 2023, most since last September.
On the Israeli side, 82 soldiers and 47 civilians were killed in 13 months.
– Protect yourself from the rain –
The Israeli army is also continuing its strikes on the besieged Gaza Strip, where eleven people were killed overnight from Monday to Tuesday, according to Civil Defense.
At the start of winter, thousands of displaced people are trying with paltry means to protect themselves from the rain. “We try as much as we can to prevent rainwater from seeping into the tents so that the children don’t get soaked,” says Ayman Siam, a father taking refuge in the Yarmouk camp in Gaza. town in the north.
The winter is going to be “horrible”, warned Louise Wateridge, an emergency manager at the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).
“People don’t have anything they need,” she told AFP. “They have not had the most basic things for 13 months: no food, no water, no shelter. With the rain and the cold on top of all that…”.
The war was triggered by the unprecedented attack launched by Hamas against Israel on October 7, 2023, which resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people on the Israeli side, mainly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official data. , including hostages killed or died in captivity.
Of 251 people kidnapped, 97 remain hostages in Gaza, among whom 34 were declared dead by the army.
The Israeli offensive carried out in retaliation in Gaza left at least 44,235 dead, the majority civilians, according to data from the Hamas Ministry of Health, deemed reliable by the UN.
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