Hezbollah rejects Lebanon-Israel ceasefire plan declared in Washington

BEIRUT: Hezbollah rejected a ceasefire plan agreed by the Lebanese and Israeli governments in United States-mediated talks, as Israel kept up strikes in southern Lebanon on Thursday (Jun 4) and said it would not be withdrawing from the south.

The US announced on Wednesday that Lebanon and Israel had agreed to implement a ceasefire contingent on Iran-backed Hezbollah ceasing fire and evacuating its fighters from areas of southern Lebanon near the border.

Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem, whose group is not a party to the talks, said the negotiations were shameless, rejecting the Washington declaration as "a roadmap for the annihilation of a section of the Lebanese people and the enslavement of the rest".

"As long as the occupation exists, the resistance will continue," he said in a written statement.

Hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel reignited on Mar 2, when the group opened fire in support of Tehran as it came under US-Israeli attack. The war has ground on despite several ceasefires declared by Washington since April.

The war has become a sticking point in diplomacy towards resolving the regional conflict. Tehran has demanded an end to Israeli attacks in Lebanon as part of any deal.

Qassem said a ceasefire must include southern Lebanon, where Israel has seized a self-declared security zone, which it says aims to shield northern Israel from Hezbollah attack.

Qassem said that towns in northern Israel would not be secure "as long as our villages are unsafe, bombed, destroyed, and our people are being killed".

The commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Quds Force - which established Hezbollah in 1982 - said "the minimum demand of the resistance" is Israel's withdrawal to positions it held before the war began and Israeli forces invaded the south.

ISRAEL KEEPS UP STRIKES

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz earlier on Thursday said Israel "will, for the time being, continue its fire and operations on the ground". The Israeli military, in a warning to residents of the south, said it was continuing to target Hezbollah facilities.

Katz said Israel would continue to "dismantle terrorist infrastructure in the area" and had "freedom of action, backed by the US, to strike in Beirut in response to attacks on Israeli communities and territory".

Israel carried out numerous airstrikes in southern Lebanon, security sources said. Lebanon's National News Agency reported five people killed in airstrikes in the town of Sohmor. A drone buzzed over Beirut.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said Washington's ceasefire framework was "a final opportunity to secure a comprehensive and permanent ceasefire".

Speaking before Qassem's statement, Aoun said the ceasefire could come into force within a day if all parties approved, in an apparent reference to Hezbollah.

The statement released by the US State Department said the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire was contingent on Hezbollah completely halting fire and the evacuation of all its operatives from the area between the border and the Litani River.

It made no reference to any Israeli withdrawal from the south.

Katz said Israeli forces would remain in the security zone, including the area of Beaufort castle, seized by Israeli forces at the weekend, "and without the return of the population".

Israel's campaign has forced some 1.2 million people to flee their homes, including hundreds of thousands from southern Lebanon, Lebanese authorities say.

LEBANESE ARMY TO CONTROL 'PILOT ZONES'

The joint statement said Lebanon and Israel agreed "to swiftly advance the creation of pilot zones in which the Lebanese Armed Forces will take exclusive control of the territory to the exclusion of all non-state actors".

Lebanese troops deployed into the south as part of a November 2024 ceasefire to end the last Hezbollah-Israel war, and declared in January that they had established control over the area between the border and the Litani.

The Lebanese government has proposed one such zone in the area of Beaufort castle as a model that could be rolled out elsewhere, a Lebanese official said.

Aoun and Lebanon's Prime Minister Nawaf Salam have been seeking Hezbollah's peaceful disarmament for a year, fuelling tension with the group.

Israel's far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir called the ceasefire a "serious mistake" and called for a Cabinet vote.

Ben-Gvir said that Hezbollah would not withdraw its fighters from the area south of the Litani River and that the Lebanese army was incapable of forcing Hezbollah to comply.

Netanyahu has come under pressure from political opponents, and some allies, who say he has ceded sovereignty in yielding to the US.

A United Nations peacekeeper in Lebanon died on Thursday from wounds sustained when mortar shells hit his position near Marjayoun in southeastern Lebanon late the previous night, the UN peacekeeping mission UNIFIL said.