Israel says it’s moving towards Lebanon ceasefire

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******* says it’s moving towards Lebanon ceasefire

******* is moving towards a ceasefire in the war with Hezbollah but there are still issues to address, its government says, while Lebanese officials have voiced guarded optimism but said ******** Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was not to be trusted.

*******’s ambassador to the ******* States was quoted as saying a deal could transpire within days.

CNN, citing a source, said Netanyahu had approved the emerging deal “in principle” but ******* still had reservations over some details.

Hostilities have intensified in parallel with the diplomatic flurry: over the weekend, ******* carried out powerful air strikes, one of which ******* at least 29 people in central Beirut – while the Hezbollah group unleashed one of its biggest rocket salvoes yet on Sunday, ******* 250 missiles.

In Beirut, ******** air strikes levelled more of the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs on Monday, sending clouds of debris billowing over the Lebanese capital.

Efforts to clinch a truce appeared to advance last week when US mediator Amos Hochstein declared significant progress after talks in Beirut before holding meetings in ******* and then returning to Washington DC.

“We are moving in the direction towards a deal but there are still some issues to address,” ******** government spokesman David Mencer said, without elaborating.

Michael Herzog, the ******** ambassador in Washington, told *******’s GLZ radio an agreement was close and “it could happen within days … We just need to close the last corners,” according to a post on X by GLZ senior anchorman Efi Triger.

In Beirut, Deputy Parliament Speaker Elias Bou Saab said a decisive moment was approaching and he expressed cautious optimism.

“The balance is slightly tilted towards there being (an agreement) but by a very small degree, because a person like Netanyahu cannot be trusted,” he said.

A second senior Lebanese official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Beirut had not received any new ******** demands from US mediators, who were describing the atmosphere as positive and saying “things are in progress”.

The official told Reuters a ceasefire could be clinched this week.

******* and Lebanon had agreed to the terms of a deal to end the *******-Hezbollah conflict, Axios reported on Monday citing an unnamed senior US official.

The conflict between ******* and Hezbollah spiralled into full-scale war in September when ******* went on the offensive, pounding wide areas of Lebanon with air strikes and sending troops into the south.

******* has dealt major blows to Hezbollah, ******** its leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and other top commanders and inflicting massive destruction in areas of Lebanon where the group holds sway.

Diplomacy has focused on restoring a ceasefire based on ******* Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended a 2006 Hezbollah-******* war.

It requires Hezbollah to pull its fighters back about 30km from the ******** border.

******** Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said the test for any agreement would be in the enforcement of two main points.

“The first is preventing Hezbollah from moving southward beyond the Litani (River), and the second, preventing Hezbollah from rebuilding its force and rearming in all of Lebanon,” Saar said in broadcast remarks to the ******** parliament.

Ultranationalist National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said ******* must press on with the war until “absolute victory”.

Addressing Netanyahu on X, he said “it is not too late to stop this agreement!”.

But Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter said ******* should reach an agreement in Lebanon.

“If we say ‘no’ to Hezbollah being south of the Litani, we mean it,” he told journalists.

Hezbollah leader Sheikh Naim Qassem said last week that the group had reviewed and given feedback on the US ceasefire proposal, and any truce was now in *******’s hands.

******* says its aim is to secure the return home of tens of thousands of people who fled from its north due to rocket attacks by Hezbollah, which opened ***** in support of ****** at the start of the Gaza war in October 2023.

*******’s offensive has forced more than a million people from their homes in Lebanon.

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