BEIRUT — Clashes have continued in southern Lebanon despite Israel and Hezbollah accepting a US plan for a partial ceasefire. At least five people have been killed in Israeli attacks hours after US President Donald Trump announced an agreement to de-escalate fighting that neither Israel nor the Lebanese group Hezbollah has publicly accepted. Israel launched fresh strikes in southern Lebanon on Tuesday even though Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to pull back from a threat to strike Hezbollah in Beirut, Lebanon’s capital, under pressure from President Trump and the United Nations.The official National News Agency (NNA) said on Tuesday that two Syrians were killed in an Israeli attack on a plant nursery where they were working in the town of Jebchit in Nabatieh governorate. Israeli drone strikes hit a motorcycle on Martyr Sabra Street in Toul and a car in the Dhi’at al-Arab neighbourhood of Ansar, killing two people, NNA said. Separately, a drone attack killed the driver of a car in Nabatieh, NNA said. The attacks came hours after Trump said he had held separate phone calls with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hezbollah leaders and announced that Israel and the Iran-aligned armed group had agreed to de-escalate attacks. Trump said on Monday that he had spoken to both sides and “they agreed that all shooting will stop”, after Iran warned Israeli military actions in Lebanon were a threat to the US-Iran ceasefire. Netanyahu paused the attacks on Beirut but made no mention of a cease-fire in Lebanon and vowed to maintain the military offensive in the south. Israel’s defense minister Israel Katz said on Tuesday Washington had given its backing to potential Israeli strikes on Beirut’s southern Dahiyeh suburb, a Hezbollah bastion, if the Iran-backed group attacked northern Israeli communities. “The United States endorsed this principle and conveyed it to the Lebanese government and all relevant actors … either the fire on Israeli communities stops, or — if fire continues — we will strike in Dahiyeh. This equation will be upheld,” Katz said at a conference, a defense ministry statement said. The Israeli military issued a new evacuation order on Tuesday for Nabatieh, one of southern Lebanon’s largest cities, which has been heavily bombarded in recent days. The strikes were launched as officials from the Lebanese government and Israel were set to meet on Tuesday for a new round of US-mediated talks in Washington aimed at defusing the conflict. On Monday, diplomats at an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council were nearly unanimous — with the exception of the United States — in calling for Israel to withdraw its forces from Lebanon and refrain from launching more attacks. Trump later said on social media that Israel and Hezbollah had agreed to stop their attacks on each other, while the Lebanese government said a new truce was taking shape. Netanyahu then issued a statement that appeared to move away from his immediate threat to attack Beirut while adding that the Israeli military would “continue to operate as planned in southern Lebanon.” “I spoke with President Trump tonight, and told him that if Hezbollah doesn’t cease its attacks on our cities and civilians — Israel will strike terror targets in Beirut,” he said. “This position of ours remains.” There was no immediate comment from Hezbollah. Lebanon’s government said it had “received confirmation that Hezbollah had agreed to the US proposal for a mutual cessation of attacks.” A prominent Lebanese politician, Nabih Berri, who has acted as an intermediary between Hezbollah and the United States, said the group was prepared to accept a cease-fire. Thousands of people fled their homes after Netanyahu’s threat to strike the city’s southern suburb, clogging roads in an exodus that has become a miserable routine over the past three years. Iran had warned the United States through intermediaries that it would suspend negotiations to end the war if Israel attacked southern Beirut, according to two senior Iranian officials. Speaking to CNBC, Trump said he “couldn’t care less” about Iran’s threats to halt talks. Oil prices fell on Tuesday after jumping more than 4 percent a day earlier on worries that the precarious cease-fire in the Middle East and negotiations for a U.S.-Iran peace deal were faltering.
Keep Up to Date with our Weekly Newsletter
