Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office swiftly denied as false a report Thursday morning that claimed officials expected a ceasefire between Israel and the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah within hours.
The United States, European Union
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
, and other allies including several Arab states had issued a joint call for a 21-day halt in the fighting in Leb
...an Iranian satrapy currently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else? It is the home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers...
, where a months-long border conflict has spiked in recent days, with Hezbollah bombarding Israel’s north and the Israel Defense Forces hitting the Iran-backed group’s infrastructure, much of which is embedded in civilian areas.
| Headlines in various Hebrew media promised an imminent ceasefire based on a single report by Britain’s Sky News, which quoted unnamed US administration officials as saying they “expect” a three-week pause to be implemented “in the coming hours” in line with the joint call issued by the US, France, and several allies. |
The statement also cast as "opposite from the truth" a Channel 12 report that Netanyahu had ordered the IDF to tone down strikes in Lebanon, saying the premier has empowered the army to keep striking with "full force," and that the fighting in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about
oppressionand
disproportionate response...
will continue until all the war goals are reached.
Rocket fire from Lebanon continued during the day as Israeli warplanes pounded Hezbollah targets.
Foreign Minister Israel Katz backed up Netanyahu, asserting that "there will be no ceasefire in the north."
"We will continue to fight the Hezbollah terror group with full force until victory and the return of residents of the north to their homes safely," added Katz, who is standing in for Netanyahu during the latter’s US trip but who doesn’t appear to have authority to make operational decisions on the prosecution of the war.
Israel has made a priority of securing its northern border and enabling the return of some 70,000 residents displaced by near-daily exchanges of fire with Hezbollah, which began attacking after Hamas
..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",...’s devastating October 7, 2023, onslaught, in solidarity with the Gaza terror group.
Headlines in various Hebrew media promised an imminent ceasefire based on a single report by Britannia’s Sky News, which quoted unnamed US administration officials as saying they "expect" a three-week pause to be implemented "in the coming hours" in line with the joint call issued by the US, La Belle France, and several allies. The lull was to be used for negotiations aimed at reaching a more permanent ceasefire.
Previous reports had quoted Israeli officials as saying the chances for a ceasefire were very slim, while others cited US officials as saying only that a decision from Israel and Lebanon on the ceasefire proposal was expected "within hours" — not that such a ceasefire would immediately come into effect.
The proposal was issued from the sidelines of the United Nations
...an organization conceived in the belief that we're just one big happy world, with the sort of results you'd expect from such nonsense...
General Assembly, which is underway in New York.
Israel’s envoy to the UN and Lebanon’s prime minister, who is attending the assembly, had both welcomed the proposal.
The Sky report, and the joint statement from the plan’s architects calling for a lull in the fighting — a step vehemently opposed by Netanyahu’s voter base and his far-right coalition partners — set off a flurry of responses from Israeli political figures.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir threatened to withdraw his far-right Otzma Yehudit party from Netanyahu’s government if he agrees to a ceasefire in Lebanon.
Following a meeting with politicians from his party, Ben Gvir warned the prime minister that acceding to a temporary deal would cause him to cease cooperating with the rest of the coalition and "if the temporary ceasefire becomes permanent we will resign from the government."
"The most basic and understandable thing is that when your enemy is on his knees, you do not allow him to recover, but work to defeat him," Ben Gvir said, claiming that to pause the fighting "conveys weakness, endangers the security of your citizens, and proves that you do not intend to win."
He continued, "If the temporary ceasefire becomes permanent...all the Otzma Yehudit ministers and MKs will resign from the government and the coalition."
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich also declared he opposed the ceasefire proposal, insisting that continuing the war against Hezbollah was the only way forward.
"The campaign in the north should end with a single result: crushing Hezbollah and eliminating its ability to harm the residents of the north," Smotrich said on social media platform X. "The enemy must not be given time to recover from the heavy blows it has suffered and reorganize itself to continue the war after 21 days."
Culture Minister Miki Zohar of Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party said he hoped what he termed the "reports" were untrue, adding that agreeing to a ceasefire would constitute "a serious error that endangers Israel’s major security achievements in recent days."
Opposition Leader Yair Lapid said that Israel should partially accept the joint US-French call for an immediate truce but only for seven days and not 21, in order to keep Hezbollah from regrouping.
"The State of Israel should announce this morning that it accepts the Biden-Macron ceasefire proposal, but only for seven days so as not to allow Hezbollah to restore its command and control systems," he tweeted. "We will not accept any proposal that does not include removing Hezbollah from our northern border.
"Any proposal that is put forward must allow the residents of the north to immediately return safely to their homes and lead to the renewal of negotiations for a hostage deal" with Hamas, he continued.
Lapid’s statement came a day after he received a security briefing from Netanyahu.
Hezbollah is barred by UN Security Council Resolution 1701 from maintaining a military presence south of the Litani River. The Shiite terror group has blatantly violated that resolution and, since October 8, has regularly launched attacks on Israel from near the border.
It began its attacks a day after the war with Hamas erupted with a devastating cross-border terror onslaught in which 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed and 251 people were taken as hostages to Gaza.
So far, the skirmishes have resulted in 26 civilian deaths on the Israeli side, as well as the deaths of 22 IDF soldiers and reservists. There have also been several attacks from Syria, without any injuries.
Hezbollah has named 512 members who have been killed by Israel during the ongoing skirmishes, mostly in Lebanon but some also in Syria. Another 88 operatives from other terror groups, a Lebanese soldier, and dozens of civilians have also been killed.
Lebanese officials say some 600 people in the country have been killed in Israeli
...
KABOOM!...
s over the past few days, without differentiating between civilians and combatants. Lebanon’s foreign minister said the number of displaced Lebanese had soared to nearly 500,000 since Israel ramped up its military campaign.