State Department: US, France to look at ‘potential ceasefire violations’
The US will look into allegations of violations of the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah as laid out under the terms it brokered.
“What we have seen since the ceasefire went into effect is that it has been broadly successful in stopping the fighting and getting us on a path where we are not seeing the daily loss of life that we had seen for two months prior,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters at a news briefing.
“Now with respect to violations or potential violations of the ceasefire, we set a mechanism up to look into this very question, where the United States along with France will engage with the Israeli military and will engage with the Lebanese military to look at potential violations.”
“We obviously anticipated that there might be violations because any time or nearly any time you have a ceasefire of this nature you have either claimed violations of the ceasefire, especially in the opening weeks, which are very fragile, or you have real violations.”
Earlier in the day, France accused Israel of violating the ceasefire more than 50 times.
And this is why the US is not an honest broker. Just stalling for time, making excuses, giving Israel the green light to go ahead with whatever.
Israel continues Lebanon attacks
Our correspondent reports more Israeli air strikes on Lebanese territory, including on Hawsh al-Sayyid Ali and Wadi al-Zein in the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon.
There was also a raid reported near the town of Yater in southern Lebanon.
Israel has still not provided information on this round of attacks, which it announced earlier this evening. Israeli officials had said a harsh response was incoming after Hezbollah fired what it said were “defensive” missiles at an Israeli army position in the disputed Shebaa Farms area.
Israeli military says struck Hezbollah fighters, equipment
Israel’s army says its fighter jets struck “dozens of Hezbollah fighters, [rocket] launchers, and infrastructure throughout Lebanon”.
In a statement on X, the army decried a strike by Hezbollah from earlier today in what it said was a violation of the ceasefire agreement, which came into effect last week on November 27. Hezbollah said it fired “defensive warning shots” at an Israeli military site in response to multiple violations by Israeli forces.
“The [Israeli army is prepared to continue attacking as long as necessary,” it said.
The announcement comes as Israeli officials, including Netanyahu, vowed a “harsh response” against Hezbollah.
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