Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he will recommend his cabinet approve a ceasefire agreement with the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, as Israeli forces carried out a wave of air strikes across Lebanon.
In a televised address, Netanyahu said he would present the draft ceasefire to cabinet ministers later on Tuesday, setting the stage for a truce that would halt Israel’s 14-month-long conflict with Hezbollah that has killed thousands of people amid soaring violence across the region.
The Israeli prime minister did not go into detail on the terms of the truce or when it would go into effect.
“The length of the ceasefire depends on what happens in Lebanon. We will enforce the agreement and respond forcefully to any violation. We will continue united until victory,” he said.
He also said that Hezbollah was “not the same” as it was before the war.
“We have pushed them decades back,” he said.
He spoke after Israel’s security cabinet met to discuss the plan, brokered by the United States – Israel’s main ally – and France, news agencies reported, quoting unnamed officials.
With the possibility of a diplomatic breakthrough looming, hostilities raged as Israel dramatically ramped up its campaign of air strikes in Beirut and other parts of Lebanon.
A Hezbollah parliament member in Lebanon, Hassan Fadlallah, told the Reuters news agency that the country faced “dangerous, sensitive hours” during the wait for a possible ceasefire agreement to be announced.
Elias Bou Saab, Lebanon’s deputy parliament speaker, said that the ceasefire has been approved in Beirut after Hezbollah endorsed its ally Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri to negotiate.
‘Hezbollah will remain active’
Implementation of the UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the last large war between Hezbollah and Israel in 2006, has been a major element in ceasefire talks. It requires Iran-aligned Hezbollah to pull back about 30km (18.6 miles) from the Israeli border, behind the Litani River.
A ceasefire could potentially see the Israeli military withdraw from south Lebanon within 60 days and the Lebanese army would then deploy in the border region, from where Hezbollah has launched most of its air attacks on northern Israel.
A five-country committee, including France and chaired by the US, would ensure compliance with the ceasefire.
However, Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir warned on X that a ceasefire deal would be a “historic missed opportunity to eradicate Hezbollah”.
Ben-Gvir and other hardliners have previously threatened to bring down the government if it agrees to a truce deal with Hamas in the Gaza Strip or Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Hostilities continue
Earlier on Tuesday, Israel ramped up its bombardment on Lebanon, with Israeli warplanes pounding Beirut’s southern suburbs.
The Israeli military said one barrage of strikes had hit 20 targets in the city in just 120 seconds.
Seven people were killed and 37 others wounded in Israeli attacks on a Beirut building housing displaced people, the National News Agency reported, citing Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health.
“The Israeli strike on the Nweiri area in Beirut destroyed a four-storey building housing displaced people,” Lebanon’s official news agency said.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry said earlier Israeli strikes killed at least 31 people on Monday, mostly in the south of the country.
Reporting from Beirut, Al Jazeera’s Zein Basravi said there was still hope among the Lebanese that “all of this escalation will follow the pattern of past conflicts between Israel and forces in Lebanon – an uptick in violence followed by a cessation”.
The war in Lebanon followed nearly a year of limited cross-border exchanges of fire initiated by Hezbollah, which said it was acting in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza after Israel launched its assault there in October 2023.
Lebanon says at least 3,768 people have been killed in the country since October 2023, most of them in the past two months.
On the Israeli side, the Lebanon hostilities have killed at least 82 soldiers and 47 civilians, authorities say.
The ceasefire is expected to pave the way for tens of thousands of displaced Israelis to return to homes in the north, but Tel Aviv-based political commentator Ori Goldberg told Al Jazeera that they are “unlikely to feel safe” to do so.
“They have become absolutely convinced that the only way they can go home is if Hezbollah is destroyed” because that is the message the government has “instilled in them”, he said.
