Israel reportedly set to approve ceasefire with Lebanon’s Hezbollah

The Israeli government is set to approve a plan for a ceasefire with the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, according to unconfirmed reports.
Israel’s security cabinet is expected to approve the plan, brokered by the United States – Israel’s main ally – and France, at a meeting on Tuesday, newswires reported, quoting unnamed officials.
An agreement would pave the way for a truce that would halt Israel’s 14-month-long conflict with Hezbollah which has killed thousands of people and threatens to escalate hostilities across the region. However, as the prospect of an end to the fighting in Lebanon lurked, both sides continued to launch strikes, and Israel’s war on Gaza continues uninterrupted.
Officials said the cabinet meeting, to be chaired by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, would take place on Tuesday evening.
Asked in New York about the prospect of a truce agreement, Israel’s UN ambassador Danny Danon said “we are moving forward on this front”, appearing to confirm that the cabinet would discuss the plan.
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.

Implementation of the UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the last major war between Hezbollah and Israel in 2006, is a major element in the ceasefire deal. It requires Iran-backed Hezbollah to pull back about 30km from the Israeli border, behind the Litani River.
The Israeli military would withdraw from south Lebanon within 60 days. 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-county 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 Lebanon ceasefire deal would be a “historic missed opportunity to eradicate Hezbollah”.
Ben-Gvir and other hardliners have threatened to bring down the government if it agrees to a truce deal with Hamas in the Gaza Strip or Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Senior Hezbollah official and member of parliament Hassan Fadlallah told the Reuters news agency that Hezbollah will remain active after its war with Israel ends, including by helping displaced Lebanese return to their villages and rebuilding areas destroyed by Israeli strikes.
Fadlallah said Lebanon was facing “dangerous, sensitive hours” before the anticipated announcement of a ceasefire, given the Israeli air force’s intensified strikes on Tuesday afternoon on Beirut and its southern suburbs.

Despite the intensifying truce talks, the hostilities continued overnight and during the day.
Israeli war planes hit Beirut’s southern suburbs with a wave of air strikes on Tuesday just before Israel’s cabinet met.
The attacks smashed the areas which is a Hezbollah stronghold, with the Israeli military saying one barrage of strikes had hit 20 targets in the city in just 120 seconds.
Seven people have been killed and 37 wounded in Israeli attacks on a Beirut building housing displaced people, the National News Agency reports, citing Lebanon’s Health Ministry.
“The Israeli strike on the Nweiri area in Beirut destroyed a four-storey building housing displaced people,” Lebanon’s official agency said.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry said earlier Israeli strikes killed at least 31 people on Monday, mostly in the south.
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, acting in support of Hamas in Israel’s war on Gaza.
Lebanon says at least 3,768 people have been killed in the country since October 2023, most of them in the past few weeks.
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.