Netanyahu says Israel ‘shares the aims’ of US truce proposal, after rejecting it
Western diplomats say PM and aides helped craft US-French ceasefire initiative, before doing a U-turn amid domestic backlash; Lebanese FM calls for truce during speech at UN
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said late Thursday that Israel “shares the aims” of the US-led initiative for a temporary ceasefire with Hezbollah, after he was pilloried within his coalition for privately assenting to the plan and subsequently renounced it.
The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) issued a “clarification” after statements from both the US and France that Israel had indicated it would support the 21-day truce proposed by Washington and Paris on Wednesday.
Israeli and American teams met late Thursday to discuss the US initiative, the PMO said, and “how we can advance the shared goal of returning people safely to their homes.” It added that these discussions would continue in the coming days.
The proposal came following a week of almost non-stop Israeli strikes that have devastated the Lebanese terror group’s senior command, on the heels of a wave of detonations of Hezbollah operatives’ communications devices, widely blamed on Israel.
The initiative is also aimed at providing time for a hostage release and ceasefire deal to come together in Gaza, where Israel is fighting the Hamas terror group, and for the brokering of an agreement between Israel and Hezbollah that sees the Iran-backed group withdraw its forces away from Israel’s northern border in line with a UN Security Council resolution.
“Due to a lot of misreporting around the US-led ceasefire initiative, it is important to clarify a few points. Earlier this week, the United States shared with Israel its intention to put forward, together with other international and regional partners, a ceasefire proposal in Lebanon,” the PMO said.
“Israel shares the aims of the US-led initiative of enabling people along our northern border to return safely and securely to their homes,” it added, reiterating the country’s war goal, which it has invoked amid the renewed offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Both the US and France made clear in statements on Thursday that Netanyahu had privately agreed to the ceasefire plan, only to then renounce it amid a backlash at home. They indicated surprise and disappointment that Israel had rejected it.
While en route to New York for the UN General Assembly on Thursday, Netanyahu had denied he had responded to or approved the ceasefire proposal, though a senior Western diplomat told The Times of Israel that the prime minister and his aides had been closely involved in crafting the joint US-French statement announcing the initiative.
“We are continuing to strike Hezbollah with full force. And we will not stop until we achieve all our goals, chief among them the return of the residents of the north securely to their homes,” the prime minister said upon landing in New York.
Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, one of Netanyahu’s top advisers, met with US special envoy Amos Hochstein and Brett McGurk, the US National Security Council’s Middle East czar, on Thursday amid the controversy. He also met with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken that evening.
In their meeting, Blinken reiterated to Dermer the Biden administration’s belief that an Israeli escalation against Hezbollah will only make it more difficult to accomplish the objective of returning evacuated Israelis to their homes along the northern border.
“A diplomatic settlement will allow civilians on both sides of the border to return to their homes… further escalation of the conflict will only make that objective more difficult,” Blinken told Dermer, according to the US readout.
Blinken also discussed the ongoing Gaza ceasefire effort, which has been stuck for over a month, and discussed steps Israel needs to take to improve the delivery of humanitarian assistance to Gaza while reiterating the US commitment to Israel’s security, the State Department said.
Meanwhile, at the UN, Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bouhabib called late Thursday for an immediate ceasefire “on all fronts,” warning that continued violence at his nation’s border will “transform into a black hole that will engulf international and regional peace and security.”
Since October 8, Hezbollah-led forces have attacked Israeli communities and military posts along the border on a near-daily basis, with the group saying it is doing so to support Gaza amid the war there.
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.
Before this week’s flareup, Hezbollah named 513 members 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 had also been killed.
Since Israel escalated its airstrikes on the Hezbollah terror group on Monday, more than 630 more people have been killed in Lebanon, according to the country’s health ministry.
At least a quarter of those killed since Monday have been women and children, according to Lebanese health officials. More than 2,000 were wounded. Israel has said that many Hezbollah operatives are among the dead. Amid the escalation, Hezbollah has largely stopped naming its slain members.
Netanyahu also met Thursday with Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić, who said he would like to see the hostages in Gaza freed “as soon as possible.”
A Serbian citizen, Alon Ohel, is still held by Hamas in Gaza.
Serbia is an important, if quiet, security partner for Israel. President Isaac Herzog visited Belgrade earlier this month, a couple of weeks after CIA director Bill Burns was in the country.
It is believed that 97 of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 33 confirmed dead by the IDF, as well as two Israelis who entered the enclave years before the war, and the bodies of two soldiers killed in 2014.
