Like one ceasefire that the US helped with between Israel and the Iran-backed group Hezbollah came into effect on Wednesday, President Biden said his administration would quickly provide “new impetus” to international partners to reach a deal that would end the even more deadly situation. war in the Gaza Strip.
Mr. Biden, who has less than two months left in office, said in a social media post Wednesday morning that his administration would work with Israel and other partners in the region in the coming days to “achieve a ceasefire in Gaza with the [Israeli] hostages released and an end to the war without Hamas in power.”
The ceasefire that the US and France helped secure to stop fighting between the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and Israel appeared to be largely in place on Wednesday, hours after it took effect. However, there was an unverified claim from the head of the Lebanese National Journalists’ Syndicate that Israeli forces in or near the southern town of Khiam had opened fire “on a group of journalists and correspondents,” reportedly leaving two behind – one at The Associated Press. and one with the Russian agency Sputnik – with unspecified injuries.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency called the syndicate’s head, Joseph Al-Qasifi, “the first violation of the ceasefire.”
CBS News has sought comment from The Associated Press and the Israel Defense Forces on the alleged incident. The IDF said in a statement that troops had interrogated four “suspects.” [who] approached IDF soldiers stationed in southern Lebanon on Wednesday,” but it was unclear whether that incident was related to the alleged shooting in Khiam.
The war in Lebanon simmered for months after Hezbollah began launching rockets into northern Israel in support of its ideological allies Hamas, the day after Hamas carried out its terrorist attack in Israel on October 7, 2023, sparking the war in Gaza. In that attack, Hamas and allied militants killed about 1,200 people in Israel and took 250 others hostage.
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The near-constant volley of rockets across the Israel-Lebanon border escalated dramatically in September, and Lebanese officials said some 3,800 people had been killed by the time the ceasefire took effect Wednesday morning. Israeli authorities say Hezbollah’s rocket attacks have killed 45 civilians over the past year, and at least 73 Israeli soldiers have been killed during its operations in southern Lebanon.
But the agreement between Israel and Hezbollah did not address the war in Gaza, which is at the heart of tensions in the Middle East. Health officials in the decimated Hamas-ruled Palestinian territory say Israel’s military assault in Gaza has killed more than 44,280 people and left about 104,000 others injured. Most of the enclave’s 2.3 million people have been driven from their homes, many of them forced to flee several times in the past year.
“Just as the Lebanese people deserve a future of security and prosperity, so do the people of Gaza. They too deserve an end to the fighting and displacement,” Biden said at the White House on Tuesday. “The people of Gaza have been through hell.”
Hamas signaled on Wednesday that it was open to renewed negotiations on a ceasefire in Gaza, with a senior official of the group telling the French news agency AFP that it had “informed mediators in Egypt, Qatar and Turkey that Hamas is ready for a ceasefire and a serious agreement.” prisoner exchange deal.”
The Reuters news agency quoted Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri as saying that the group recognized Lebanon’s right to participate in the ceasefire with Israel to protect its people and expressed hope that an agreement to Ending Gaza war could also be possible after many months of fighting. largely fruitless conversations.
Mr Biden said the US would work with “Turkey, Egypt, Qatar, Israel and others” to broker a so-far elusive deal between Israel and Hamas, and the Egyptian government announced on Wednesday that President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi had already met with the visiting Prime Minister of Qatar to discuss “joint efforts aimed at a ceasefire in Gaza, joint efforts to secure the release of the hostages and unconditional access of humanitarian and emergency aid to the Gaza Strip”.
Earlier Wednesday, Jordan’s King Abdullah II also visited Cairo and met with el-Sisi, discussing both the ceasefire in Lebanon and the latest developments in Gaza, Egyptian officials said.
But as negotiators renew their efforts on Gaza, they are likely to keep a close and even wary eye on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, as there is far more international will behind the ceasefire with Hezbollah than there is trust among the old enemies.
Israel and Hezbollah exchanged heavy fire until just before the ceasefire took effect on Wednesday. It will now be exciting to see whether peace holds during the 60-day period in which Israeli forces, who crossed the border in early October, slowly withdraw from Hezbollah’s previous stronghold in southern Lebanon. They will be replaced by Lebanese soldiers and United Nations peacekeepers in a process overseen by the US and France.
Over the next two months, Israel must withdraw all its troops from Lebanon and Hezbollah must withdraw its fighters and weapons about thirty kilometers north of the border, to the other side of the Litani River.
But mistrust on both sides of the border – the so-called Blue Line established after the last war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006 – runs deep. Both Mr. Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu emphasized on Tuesday that, in the Israeli leader’s words, “If Hezbollah breaks the agreement and tries to rearm itself, we will attack.”
“For any transgression,” Netanyahu threatened, “we will attack with might.”
Speaking Wednesday on “CBS Mornings,” U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said the Biden administration helped broker a truce based on past successes and failures.
“We have learned from the past,” he said, “and we have designed this deal to be long lasting and in force – to continue to maintain peace and also to guarantee the security of the State of Israel.”
The fighting between Israel and Hezbollah drove hundreds of thousands of Lebanese civilians from their homes in the south, and about 60,000 Israelis from their communities near the border in the north.
“It is not safe to go home,” Israeli Eliyahu Maman said as the ceasefire silenced the rocket fire, “because Hezbollah can still harm us.”
Across the border, Beirut resident Rima Abdkhaluk said she “did not believe in this ceasefire…Israel cannot be trusted.”
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But neither the lack of trust nor warnings from Israeli and Lebanese officials to civilians not to return to areas evacuated during Israel’s offensive since October were enough to deter thousands of Lebanese citizens from packing their belongings back into cars and cramming onto highways in an attempt to return to their country. their homes in the south Wednesday.
About two million Palestinians in Gaza will hope that in the coming weeks they too will have the chance to rebuild their shattered lives. The families of the roughly 100 Israeli hostages still held in the Gaza Strip hope that renewed pressure for a ceasefire with Hamas can also bring their loved ones home.
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contributed to this report.
