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Lebanon is studying a US proposal for a truce in the war between Hezbollah and Israel, Lebanese officials said Friday, as Palestinian Hamas said it was ready for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip with the Israeli army.
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November 15, 2024 – 9.23pm
(Keystone-ATS) Since the start of the war in Gaza, triggered on October 7, 2023 by an attack of unprecedented scale by Hamas on Israeli soil, multiple diplomatic initiatives have failed, with Hamas and Israel accusing each other of blocking everything. agreement.
For its part, Hezbollah opened a front in October 2023 against Israel in support of its Palestinian ally, and after a year of cross-border exchanges of fire in southern Lebanon, the powerful Islamist movement and the Israeli army entered into war on September 23.
Expected response
A senior Lebanese official told AFP that the American ambassador to Beirut, Lisa Johnson, had presented to the Prime Minister, Najib Mikati, and the head of Parliament, Nabih Berri, a 13-point plan which notably provides for a truce of 60 days and the deployment of the army in southern Lebanon, on the border.
A second Lebanese government source confirmed that a proposal was under consideration.
“Mr. Berri asked for a three-day delay,” said the first official, adding that Israel had not yet provided a response.
Since September 23, the Israeli army has been carrying out intense bombings in Lebanon, targeting in particular Hezbollah strongholds in the south, east and suburbs of Beirut. It began a ground offensive in the south of the country a week later.
New “violent” Israeli raids targeted the southern suburbs of Beirut on Friday, the Lebanese news agency ANI reported.
The Israeli army, for its part, indicated on Friday evening that it had earlier carried out a series of strikes in the southern suburbs of Beirut against Hezbollah targets, including “command centers” of the movement. She said she had previously warned the population in the area.
More than 3,440 people have died in Lebanon since September 23, the majority civilians, according to the Ministry of Health.
Israel says it wants to neutralize the pro-Iranian movement in the border regions of southern Lebanon to allow the return home of some 60,000 inhabitants of the north of the country displaced by Hezbollah fire.
At the same time, the Israeli army continued strikes in the Gaza Strip, particularly in Deir el-Balah, in the center.
“I was woken up by the bombing at 2:30 a.m. (1:00 a.m. Swiss),” Mohamed Baraka, a Palestinian, told AFPTV standing among the rubble and shards of glass littering the ruins of his house destroyed by a strike. He reported “three martyrs and 15 wounded” and called on “the world to end the war”.
The UN Office of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha) further reported that “several displaced Palestinians” had been “killed during attacks in the al-Mawasi area” in the center of the territory.
Since October 2023, the Israeli offensive in Gaza has left 43,764 dead, mostly civilians, according to data from the Hamas government’s Ministry of Health.
Israeli military operations, which have plunged the Palestinian territory into a serious humanitarian crisis, have weakened Hamas.
“Stop the aggression”
“Hamas is ready to reach a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip in the event that a ceasefire proposal is presented and on the condition that (Israel) respects it,” assured AFP a member of his political bureau, Bassem Naïm, calling on “the American administration and Trump to put pressure on the Israeli government to stop the aggression” in Gaza.
Donald Trump, who is due to take office at the White House in January, has promised to bring peace to the region.
Mr. Naïm reaffirmed that Hamas wanted a “serious agreement for an exchange of Palestinian prisoners” held by Israel for hostages taken on October 7, 2023 to Gaza.
During the Hamas attack, which resulted in the death of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data including hostages killed or died in captivity, 251 people were kidnapped on the Israeli soil.
A total of 97 hostages remain in Gaza, 34 of whom were declared dead by the army.
Islamic Jihad, an armed Palestinian group that participated in the attack on October 7, 2023, broadcast on Friday a video extract of hostage Sacha Trupanov, speaking to a member of the Israeli government coalition, so that he could contribute to its release and that of the other hostages.
More than 100 hostages were released at the end of November 2023 under the only truce applied in more than a year of war.
