Hezbollah Chief Rejects Truce, Demands Israeli Withdrawal From Lebanon

Beirut: Hezbollah on Thursday rejected the latest ceasefire agreement between Israel and the Lebanese government, and the militant group demanded a complete Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon as more fighting there hampered efforts to end the Iran war.

The Hezbollah announcement came as Israeli strikes killed at least four people, according to local authorities, and a U.N. peacekeeper was killed in the crossfire. An Israeli soldier was also killed in combat in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah leader Naim Kassem, in a written statement read on TV, called the negotiations “absurd, humiliating and insulting.” He said the agreement’s demand that Hezbollah fighters leave southern Lebanon under fire would mean “surrender, defeat and achieving the enemy’s goals.”

“What we are concerned about is an end to the aggression, ceasefire and Israel’s withdrawal,” he said, underscoring that Hezbollah has not made any commitment to stop fighting. “So long as our villages are not safe and are being bombed and destroyed and our people are killed,” he said, northern Israel will not be safe.” Following Kassem’s statement, drone alert sirens sounded in several border communities in northern Israel, including Shlomi, a town where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and several ministers had been meeting with local officials, his office said. Israeli media reported that Netanyahu left a short time before the alerts sounded. The Israeli military later said the sirens were triggered by attempts to intercept several drones that hit near soldiers in southern Lebanon. No injuries were reported.

Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump on Thursday said that any killing of US troops by Iran would be a “good reason” to restart the war. Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump said, “If they killed US Troops, it would be a good reason to do so…There is no navy, no air force, we have wiped out their leadership. Then you read in the fake news that they are doing really well in the war, which is unbelievable. They have 159 ships, and all of them lie at the bottom of the ocean. We have taken pictures of them down there.”