Lebanon‘s government is considering a US proposal for a ceasefire agreement between Hezbollah and Israel, officials in Beirut said on Friday, while the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas said it was willing to sign a ceasefire agreement with the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip. , where the war continues for the 407th day.
Since the war broke out in the Gaza Strip, triggered by an unprecedented attack by Hamas on southern areas of Israel on October 7, 2023, the diplomatic efforts that have been made have only allowed a cease-fire agreement to be concluded once, for seven days, last November. Since then, Hamas and the Israeli government have blamed each other for the deadlock in the indirect negotiations.
For its part, Hezbollah opened a front on October 8 with Israel in support of its ally Hamas, and after a year of cross-border firefights, the powerful Lebanese Shiite movement and the Israeli armed forces engaged in war. from September 23rd.
A senior Lebanese government official told AFP that the US ambassador to Beirut, Lisa Johnson, presented Prime Minister Najib Mikati and Parliament Speaker Nabi Berri with a 13-point plan, including a 60-day ceasefire and deployment of Lebanese army on the border with Israel.
A second government source confirmed that an American proposal is being considered.
“Mr. Berry asked for a deadline of three days,” the first source clarified, adding that there has still been no response from the Israeli side.
New “heavy” airstrikes hit southern suburbs of Beirut yesterday, according to the Lebanese national news agency ANI.
Since September 23, the Israeli military has been conducting a massive aerial bombardment campaign across Lebanese territory, targeting mainly Hezbollah strongholds, and since September 30, it has begun ground operations in southern Lebanon.
More than 3,440 people have died in Lebanon since September 23, most of them civilians, according to the health ministry in Beirut.
Israel says it wants to neutralize the Iranian-allied Shiite movement in border areas in southern Lebanon to allow the return of some 60,000 northern Israelis forced from their homes by Hezbollah’s relentless fire.
At the same time, the Israeli army continued its shelling of the Gaza Strip, mainly in Deir al-Bala (center).
“I was woken up by shelling at 2:30 a.m.,” said Mohammed Baraka, a Palestinian man standing amid piles of debris and broken glass strewn everywhere in front of his house, which was destroyed by an Israeli strike. He spoke of “three martyrs and 15 wounded” and called on “the world to stop the war”.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) also reported that “several displaced Palestinians” died “during attacks in al-Maghazi area”, in the southern part of the enclave.
Since October 2023, the Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip has claimed the lives of at least 43,764 people, the majority of them civilians, according to data from the Hamas health ministry, which is deemed reliable by the United Nations.
Israeli military operations, which have plunged the Palestinian enclave into an increasingly serious humanitarian crisis, are believed to have weakened the military arm of Hamas.
“Hamas is ready to conclude a cease-fire agreement in the Gaza Strip in the event that a proposal is presented and on the condition that (Israel) respects it,” a member of the movement’s political office, Bassem Naim, assured AFP, urging “the US government and Trump to put pressure on the Israeli government to stop the attack” on the Gaza Strip.
Donald Trump, who will take office in the US on January 20, has promised to restore peace to the Middle East. It doesn’t explain how. Political analysts believe that his return to the White House will give a “blank check” to the government of Benjamin Netanyahu.
Mr. Naim assured that Hamas wants a “serious agreement on the exchange of prisoners”, Palestinian prisoners held in Israel for hostages kidnapped during the raid in the southern part of the Israeli territory on October 7.
The Hamas raid killed 1,206 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli data, which includes hostages who either died in captivity or were already dead when taken to the Palestinian enclave.
Of the 251 people kidnapped during the raid in southern Israel, 97 remain hostages in the Gaza Strip, but 34 of them have been declared dead by the Israeli army.
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad, an armed movement that participated in the raid of October 7, 2023, yesterday released a new video of hostage Sasha Trupanov, in which he addresses a member of the Israeli government alliance and asks him to help free him and other hostages.
More than 100 hostages were freed at the end of November 2023, when the only ceasefire agreement to date in the more than a year-long war, which had lasted for seven days, was implemented.
With their report made public yesterday Friday, some thirty NGOs also accused the Israeli army of favoring the looting of humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip by specifically targeting Palestinian police forces that are trying to combat such phenomena.
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