Israel and Lebanon agree to 10-day ceasefire, Donald Trump declares
Washington: Israel and Lebanon will enter a 10-day ceasefire within hours, US President Donald Trump has announced, in another potential step towards ending the broader conflict with Iran.
But it was not clear how the ceasefire would work in practice, as Israel is fighting the terrorist group Hezbollah rather than the Lebanese state.
Trump said he spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Lebanese President Joseph Aoun on Thursday (US time), following talks between top diplomats in Washington earlier in the week.
“These two leaders have agreed that in order to achieve PEACE between their Countries, they will formally begin a 10-day CEASEFIRE,” Trump declared on social media. The truce will begin at 5pm Washington time (7am AEST).
Israel has continued to launch strikes against targets associated with Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militia in Lebanon that is a listed terrorist organisation in Australia, the US and elsewhere.
Elliott Abrams, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and a former US special representative for Iran, said it was not clear who the ceasefire was actually between.
“If that means the state of Lebanon, what about Hezbollah? They can break it tomorrow and that’s the end of the 10 days,” he said.
Aoun does not control Hezbollah, though Abrams said he could potentially try to persuade them to stop through Lebanon’s parliamentary speaker Nabih Berri, a Hezbollah ally.
“It’s not completely inconceivable to me,” he said. Hezbollah has not yet said whether it will participate in the ceasefire.
There has been a ceasefire between the US, Iran and Israel since April 7, with ongoing talks to end the war that began on February 28. But the ceasefire did not include Lebanon.
Iranian initially demanded the ceasefire apply to Israel’s attacks in Lebanon, but it participated in negotiations in Pakistan last week regardless.
There was no immediate comment from Netanyahu on Trump’s ceasefire announcement. But less than 24 hours earlier, he said Israeli forces were continuing to strike Hezbollah and were about to conquer Bint Jbeil, a municipality in the country’s south near the Israeli border.
He said he had also instructed the Israeli Defence Forces to “continue thickening the security zone” between the two countries.
“Our American friends are constantly updating us on the contacts with Iran,” Netanyahu said. Our goals are identical. In anticipation of the possibility that the fighting will resume, we are prepared for any scenario.”
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Michael Koziol is the North America correspondent for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald. He is a former Sydney editor, Sun-Herald deputy editor and a federal political reporter in Canberra.Connect via X or email.
