Lebanon ceasefire pending Israeli response after it carried out deadliest attack on Beirut
Smoke billows over Beirut's southern suburbs after an Israeli strike on Sunday as seen from Baabda, Lebanon.
In short:
Israel said houses were destroyed or set alight near Tel Aviv after a heavy rocket barrage from Hezbollah.
It came after one of Israel's most powerful air strikes killed more than 100 people in Beirut over the weekend.
What's next?
The EU's foreign policy chief said a US ceasefire proposal was awaiting final approval from Israel, with conflicting media reports from insiders confirming and denying it has accepted one.
Hezbollah fired heavy rocket barrages at Israel on Sunday, and the Israeli military said houses had been destroyed or set alight near Tel Aviv, after a powerful Israeli air strike killed at least 29 people in Beirut the day before.
Israel also struck Beirut's Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs, where intensified bombardment over the last two weeks has coincided with signs of progress in US-led ceasefire talks.
Hezbollah, which has previously vowed to respond to attacks on Beirut by targeting Tel Aviv, said it had launched precision missiles at two military sites in Tel Aviv and nearby.
Israeli police said there were multiple impact sites in the area of Petah Tikvah, on the eastern side of Tel Aviv, and that several people had minor injuries.
Civil defence members work as Lebanese army soldiers stand guard at the site of an Israeli strike in Beirut's Basta neighbourhood on Saturday.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said a direct hit on a neighbourhood had left "houses in flames and ruins." Television footage showed an apartment damaged by rocket fire.
Israel's military said Hezbollah had fired 250 rockets at Israel, of which many were intercepted, with sirens sounding across most of the country. At least four people had been injured by shrapnel.
Video obtained by Reuters showed a projectile exploding as it smashed into the roof of a building in the northern Israeli city of Nahariya.
Israel's military warned on social media that it planned to target Hezbollah facilities in southern Beirut before strikes demolished two apartment blocks, according to security sources in Lebanon. Afterwards, the IDF said it had hit command centres "deliberately embedded between civilian buildings."
On Sunday, the IDF said it carried out strikes against 12 Hezbollah command centres in the southern Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh.
On Saturday, it had carried out one of its deadliest and most powerful strikes on the centre of Beirut.
Lebanon's health ministry on Sunday raised the death toll from 20 to 29. It said a total of 84 people had been killed on Saturday, taking the death toll to 3,754 since October 2023.
The IDF did not comment on Saturday's strike in the Lebanese capital or say what it had attacked.
Israel went on the offensive against the Iran-backed Hezbollah in September, pounding the south, the Bekaa Valley and Beirut's southern suburbs with air strikes after nearly a year of hostilities ignited by the Gaza war.
Ceasefire proposal awaits Israel's response
The Israeli offensive has uprooted more than 1 million people in Lebanon.
Israel says its aim is to secure the return home of tens of thousands of people evacuated from its north due to rocket attacks by Hezbollah, which opened fire in support of Hamas at the start of the Gaza war in October 2023.
People check their family's damaged house at the scene where one of Hezbollah's projectiles fell in Rinatiya, Israel on Sunday.
US mediator Amos Hochstein highlighted progress in negotiations during a visit to Beirut last week, before travelling to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz, and then returning to Washington.
European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Sunday said a US ceasefire proposal was awaiting final approval from Israel.
"We must pressure the Israeli government and maintain the pressure on Hezbollah to accept the US proposal for a ceasefire," he said in Beirut after meeting Lebanese officials.
Josep Borrell said it's Israel's turn to accept the US's ceasefire proposal.
Israeli media reported that Netanyahu had convened a meeting of his security cabinet in the evening.
Axios reporter Barak Ravid in a post on social media cited an unnamed Israeli official saying that Israel is moving towards a ceasefire agreement in Lebanon.
But a separate report from Israel's public broadcaster Kan said there was no green light given on an agreement in Lebanon, with issues still yet to be resolved.
Diplomacy has focused on restoring a ceasefire based on UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended a 2006 Hezbollah-Israel war. It requires Hezbollah to pull its fighters back around 30 km from the Israeli border, and the Lebanese army to deploy in the buffer zone.
The Lebanese army said on Sunday at least one soldier had been killed and 18 more injured in an Israeli strike that caused severe damage at an army centre in Al-Amiriya near the southern city of Tyre.
The Israeli military said it regretted the incident and was investigating, and that it was fighting against Hezbollah, not the Lebanese Army.
Lebanon's caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, said the attack "represents a direct bloody message rejecting all efforts to reach a ceasefire, strengthen the army's presence in the south, and implement … 1701."
Mr Borrell said the EU was ready to allocate 200 million euros ($320 million) to support the Lebanese army.
Reuters
By：ABC(责任编辑：admin)
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