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Lebanon awaits truce proposals after US envoy expresses hope
Lebanon is awaiting concrete ceasefire proposals, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri was quoted as saying, after a senior US official said he saw “a shot” at a truce soon in the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.
White House envoy Amos Hochstein told Axios that he thinks “there is a shot” at a truce in Lebanon soon. “I am hopeful we can get it.”
His comments point to a last-ditch bid by the outgoing administration of US President Joe Biden to secure a Lebanon ceasefire as diplomacy to end the Gaza war appears adrift, with mediator Qatar having suspended its role.
Berri, endorsed to negotiate by Hezbollah, told Asharq al-Awsat newspaper that Lebanon had not been informed officially of any new proposals for a ceasefire, which several rounds of US-led diplomacy have failed to secure over the last year.
“What is on the table is only Resolution 1701 and its provisions, which must be implemented and adhered to by both sides, not by the Lebanese side alone,” Berri, who helped negotiate the 2006 truce, told Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper.
After attack, north Lebanon villagers worry that Israel targets displaced people
Shredded clothing, broken table legs, torn copies of the Quran, a red “I love you” teddy bear and a book on Aristotle lie amid piles of socks. These, among many other things, are strewn in the rubble of the northern Lebanese village of Ain Yaaqoub in Akkar after a deadly Israeli air raid.
Beneath all this, at least one body remains under the rubble of what was a two-storey apartment building, Red Cross rescuers say. Metres away, charred, unrecognisable body parts litter the ground.
Monday night’s Israeli air strike on Ain Yaaqoub in this remote, far northern corner of Lebanon killed at least 14 people, says Walid Semaan, head of the Lebanese Red Cross. It was nothing less than a “massacre”, according to people in Ain Yaaqoub, taking out not only the apartment building but many more homes around it as well.
Evacuation orders force more people into displacement in Lebanon
Israel is issuing forced evacuation orders for highly populated areas, which means many people are still fleeing.
Authorities have been accommodating the displaced in shelters, many of which are schools. The school year was supposed to start a month ago, but it was delayed because of the war.
There are 1,250 government schools in Lebanon and 505 of them are being used as shelters. Four-hundred schools have been closed because they have been damaged or are in the conflict zone.
