Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Friday that Israel would continue to discuss ceasefire proposals for Lebanon in the coming days, as Washington warned that any further advances would make it harder for citizens on both sides to return home.
Israel’s foreign minister on Thursday rejected global calls for a ceasefire with the Iran-backed Hezbollah group and insisted on air strikes that have killed hundreds of people in Lebanon and raised fears of a regional war.
Nine members of a family, including four children, were killed in an Israeli strike in the Lebanese border town of Shebaa on Friday, Mayor Mohammed Saab told Reuters. The health ministry says more than 600 people have been killed in Israeli strikes in Lebanon since Monday.
Hezbollah said it fired rockets at Israel on Friday at Kiryat Ata and the city of Tiberias, near the city of Haifa, about 30 km (20 miles) from the border, declaring the attacks a response to Israel’s attacks on villages, towns and civilians.
Although Israeli air defenses have shot down several of Hezbollah’s rockets, limiting the damage they caused, the group’s attacks have shut down normal life across much of northern Israel as more areas fall into its crosshairs. Are.
The Israeli military said it intercepted four unmanned aircraft that entered the maritime zone from Lebanese territory off the coast of Rosh Hanikra along the Lebanese border.
The conflict between Israeli forces and heavily armed Hezbollah is the worst in more than 18 years and is part of the regional spillover of the Gaza war.
The United States and France on Wednesday proposed an immediate 21-day ceasefire and said talks would continue, including on the sidelines of a United Nations meeting in New York.
Netanyahu said on Friday that Israeli teams held meetings on Thursday to discuss US ceasefire proposals and that discussions would continue in the coming days, praising US efforts.
“Our teams met (on September 26) to discuss the US initiative and how we can advance the shared goal of returning people safely to their homes. We look forward to those discussions in the coming days,” he said in a statement. Will continue.”
On Thursday, after Netanyahu departed for New York, where he is attending the United Nations General Assembly, his office issued a statement saying the prime minister had ordered Israeli troops to continue fighting in Lebanon in full force.
His statement made no reference to comments by Foreign Minister Israel Katz, who rejected the ceasefire proposals on Thursday, or other Israeli politicians who have reiterated that position, saying only that “the U.S.-led There was a lot of misreporting about the ceasefire initiative”.
Blinken stressed the importance of ceasefire
Israel says its operation aims to ensure the return home of thousands of Israelis who were forced to evacuate areas near the Lebanese border during hostilities with Hezbollah last year.
Declaring solidarity with the Palestinians, Hezbollah began firing on Israel on 8 October as the Gaza War began. Hezbollah has said it will stop firing only when Israel’s Gaza offensive ends.
More than 90,000 people were reported to be newly displaced in Lebanon this week, according to the UN International Organization for Migration (IOM), adding to the more than 111,000 already displaced by the conflict.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Israel on Thursday that a further escalation of the conflict would make it harder for civilians on both sides of the border to return home, the State Department said.
“The Secretary discussed the importance of reaching an agreement on a 21-day ceasefire along the Israel-Lebanon border,” the State Department said in a statement, referring to talks between Blinken and Israel’s Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer.
“He stressed that further escalation of the conflict would make that objective (the return of civilians) more difficult.”
The State Department said Blinken also discussed efforts to reach a ceasefire in Gaza and steps Israel could take to improve the delivery of humanitarian aid to the territory, where almost all of its 2.3 million population is displaced and faces a hunger crisis. Still working.
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