Israel and Lebanon agree to 10-day ceasefire, Donald Trump declares
Washington: US President Donald Trump announced within hours that Israel and Lebanon will enter into a 10-day ceasefire in another potential step towards ending the broader conflict with Iran.
However, it was unclear how the ceasefire would work in practice, as Israel was fighting the Hezbollah terrorist organization rather than the Lebanese state.
Trump said he met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Lebanese President Joseph Aoun on Thursday (US time), following meetings between senior diplomats in Washington earlier in the week.
“These two leaders have agreed to officially initiate a 10-day ceasefire to ensure PEACE between their Countries,” Trump said in a statement on social media. he said. The ceasefire will begin at 5pm Washington time (7am AEST).
Israel continued to launch attacks on targets associated with Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militia group in Lebanon that is listed as a terrorist organization in Australia, the United States and elsewhere.
Elliott Abrams, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and former US special envoy for Iran, said it was not clear who the ceasefire was actually between.
“If this means the Lebanese state, what about Hezbollah? They can break it tomorrow and that’s the end of 10 days,” he said.
Aoun does not control Hezbollah, but Abrams said he could try to persuade them to stop through Lebanon’s parliamentary speaker, Nabih Berri, who is an ally of Hezbollah. “This isn’t completely incomprehensible to me.”
Hezbollah has not yet announced whether it will join the ceasefire. But senior Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah told Reuters the group had been informed by Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon that a week-long ceasefire could begin on Thursday evening.
When asked whether Hezbollah would abide by the ceasefire, Fadlallah said it all depends on Israel’s determination to stop all hostilities and credited Iran’s diplomatic efforts for a possible ceasefire.
Trump said he invited Netanyahu and Aoun to the White House for the meeting, but did not say whether they agreed to come.
The two countries have no diplomatic relations and had not had high-level, face-to-face meetings in more than 30 years until this week’s meeting between ambassadors at the US State Department.
The ceasefire between the USA, Iran and Israel has been continuing since April 7, and negotiations to end the war that started on February 28 are ongoing. However, the ceasefire does not include Lebanon.
Iran initially demanded that the ceasefire also apply to Israeli attacks in Lebanon, but last week it nevertheless joined negotiations in Pakistan.
There was no comment from Netanyahu regarding Trump’s ceasefire announcement. But less than 24 hours ago he said Israeli forces were continuing to attack Hezbollah and were about to capture Bint Jbeil, a municipality in the south of the country, close to the Israeli border.
He also said he had instructed the Israel Defense Forces to “continue to thicken the security zone” between the two countries.
Netanyahu said, “Our American friends constantly give us information about contacts with Iran.” Our goals are the same. “We are prepared for any scenario, considering the possibility of a resumption of hostilities.”
via Reuters
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Michael Koziol is the North America correspondent for The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald. He is a former Sydney editor, Sun-Herald deputy editor and a federal political correspondent in Canberra.Connect with: X or email.
