Hezbollah had told Lebanese authorities it was accepting a ceasefire with Israel on the day its leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli strike, a government source told AFP today.
Until then, the powerful Shiite group had made an end to hostilities in Lebanon conditional on an end to fighting in Gaza between the Israeli army and Palestinian Hamas. Hezbollah opened the southern Lebanon front against Israel a year ago, to support Hamas.
“On September 27, Hezbollah formally informed the Lebanese government, through Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, that it accepted the international ceasefire initiative,” said this source, who asked not to be named.
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati was that day at the UN, where an international proposal for a 21-day ceasefire, initiated by France and the US, was under discussion. Mikati informed his interlocutors of the position Hezbollah would take, the same source added. International negotiators were waiting for the approval of the Israeli government.
However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in his speech to the UN General Assembly that day that he would continue to hit Hezbollah in Lebanon. Immediately after his speech, the Israeli air force struck a building in the southern suburbs of Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold, where Nasrallah was staying, killing him.
After Nasrallah’s death, the Lebanese government “no longer has contacts with Hezbollah,” the same source said.
On Tuesday, Hezbollah’s No. 2, Naim Qassem, said the organization “supports President Berry’s political efforts aimed at a ceasefire.”
Nabih Berri is the head of the Shiite Amal movement, an ally of Hezbollah.
Qassem, whose speech was broadcast by Hezbollah’s al-Manar channel, did not link the ceasefire to an end to fighting in Gaza.
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