Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office dismissed international calls for a ceasefire Hezbollah Thursday, hours after President Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron issued a joint statement asking them to support a temporary peace proposal with international support. US and French leaders called on both sides on Wednesday to back the proposal, but neither showed support on Thursday, and the exchange the deadly fire continued.
“This is a proposal from the United States and France that the Prime Minister has not responded to,” Netanyahu’s office said Thursday, adding to the dismissal of a separate report suggesting the Israeli leader told his troops to “moderate” their attack on Hezbollah to give space. to negotiate a possible ceasefire.
“The report about the order aimed at freeing up fighting in the north is false,” Netanyahu’s office said. “The Prime Minister has ordered the IDF to continue fighting vigorously.”
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said definitively on social media early Thursday: “There will be no ceasefire in the north.”
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Mr. Biden and Macron, both in New York this week for the United Nations General Assembly, issued their joint call Tuesday night for a temporary ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah after a week of Israeli airstrikes that killed more than 630 people in Lebanon. , according to the Ministry of Health in this country.
Several people were injured in Israel as a result of Hezbollah’s barrage of rockets and rockets, most of which were fired by the country’s missile defense systems.
The escalation of violence began on October 8, as Hezbollah said it was attacking Israel in support of the Palestinians. The Gaza Strip is coming under fire as Israel launched its sad revenge for the Hamas terrorist attack the previous day.
I exchange of fire between Israel and Hezbollah – bigger and better armed than its allies Hamas – has fueled fears of a wider war in the Middle East that could draw the US, as Israel’s closest ally, and Hezbollah’s backer Iran, directly into the war.
Tens of thousands of people from communities on both sides of the border have been driven from their homes by the ongoing exchange of fire, and since Israel began striking Hezbollah targets in Lebanon last week, many thousands more have fled south of our brothers.
Amr Abdallah Dalsh/REUTERS
“It is time to fix the Israeli-Lebanon border that ensures safety and security so that citizens can return home,” the US-French statement said. “The exchange of fire since October 7, and especially in the last two weeks, threatens a very wide conflict, harming civilians. So we have worked together in recent days on a joint request to temporarily stop giving the opportunity to negotiate. to succeed and avoid further escalation across the border.”
Mr. Biden and Macron said their proposal for a ceasefire was passed by the US, Australia, Canada, the European Union, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.
“We ask for the broad approval and immediate support of the Governments of Israel and Lebanon,” the two leaders said.
The IDF said that overnight the Israeli Air Force attacked “about 75 terrorist sites of the terrorist organization Hezbollah in the Beqaa area and southern Lebanon, including weapons storage facilities, explosives ready to fire, terrorists and terrorist infrastructure.”
On Thursday, Lebanon’s state news agency reported that an Israeli airstrike hit a building housing Syrian workers, killing 23 people and wounding eight, according to the Associated Press.