Israel’s security cabinet has met to discuss a plan for a ceasefire with the Lebanese armed group, Hezbollah.
Israel’s security cabinet is expected to approve the plan, brokered by the United States – Israel’s main ally – and France, at the meeting on Tuesday, November 26, 2024, news agencies reported, quoting unnamed officials.
An agreement would pave the way for a truce that would halt Israel’s 14-month-long conflict with Hezbollah which has killed thousands of people amid soaring violence across the region.
Implementation of the UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the last major war between Hezbollah and Israel in 2006, is a major element in the ceasefire deal.
It requires Iran-backed Hezbollah to pull back about 30km (18.6 miles) from the Israeli border, behind the Litani River.
The Israeli military would withdraw from south Lebanon within 60 days. The Lebanese army would then deploy in the border region, from where Hezbollah has launched most of its air attacks on northern Israel.
A five-country committee, including France and chaired by the US, would ensure compliance with the ceasefire.
With the possibility of a diplomatic breakthrough looming, hostilities raged as Israel dramatically ramped up its campaign of air strikes in Beirut and other parts of Lebanon.
Israeli warplanes pounding Beirut’s southern suburbs on Tuesday.
The Israeli military said one barrage of strikes had hit 20 targets in the city in just 120 seconds.
Seven people were killed and 37 others wounded in Israeli attacks on a Beirut building housing displaced people, the National News Agency reported, citing Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health.
“The Israeli strike on the Nweiri area in Beirut destroyed a four-storey building housing displaced people,” Lebanon’s official news agency said.
Hezbollah lawmaker, Amin Sherri says Israel wants to punish the Lebanese people, particularly the group’s supporters, ahead of a possible ceasefire.
Israel’s military again threatened to imminently attack several buildings in southern Beirut, telling residents in the vicinity to urgently flee.
In a post on X, Israel’s Arabic-language spokesperson, Avichay Adraee, posted a map with several buildings in Beirut’s southern suburbs of Ghobeiry and Hadath that he identified as targets.
“For your safety and the safety of your family members, you must evacuate these buildings and those adjacent to them immediately,” he said.
Minutes earlier, he also ordered people in southern Lebanon’s Baalbek and Qsarnaba regions to flee for their lives.
Analyst Foresees Difficult Night For Israeli And Lebanese Civilians
Military analyst, Elijah Magnier opined that despite talk of a Hezbollah-Israel ceasefire it will be “the most difficult night ever since 2006” for civilians in both Lebanon and Israel.
He stated that when the cessation of hostilities was announced in 2006, hundreds of strikes from both sides occurred for the next two days with “strategic, symbolic, and psychological implications.”
He added that in the current war, Israel’s leadership underestimated Hezbollah’s staying power with hundreds of missiles and drones launched into the country over the past few weeks.
“There were mistakes of evaluation by Israeli thinking that they had defeated Hezbollah and were just about to destroy it completely. And this is when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu raised his objective to change the whole Middle East.”
Also, Magnier asserted that after 52 days of heavy bombardment and a ground invasion of Lebanon, Israel has not achieved even half of what it did during the war in 2006.
After a major Hezbollah rocket barrage at the weekend, he said, “this is when the Israelis realised the objective cannot be met and a cessation of hostilities is much better and they both can claim victory.”
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