Israel does not accept the ceasefire proposal in Lebanon

2024-09-26 18:55:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said he had not responded to the ceasefire proposal. The announcement also says Prime Minister Netanyahu has instructed the Israeli military to continue the fight "with full force."

The cease-fire proposal was made on Wednesday evening in a statement that said the conflict between Israel and the Hezbollah militant group "must not be allowed and poses an unacceptable risk of a wider regional escalation".

The statement said the cease-fire would allow for the start of negotiations towards a diplomatic solution in line with UN Security Council resolutions calling for a halt to fighting between Israel and the Hezbollah group. This would also create the possibility of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza.

Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar also joined the call for a ceasefire. The statement said a wider regional conflict "is not in anyone's interest, neither the people of Israel nor the people of Lebanon."

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot told the Security Council on Wednesday that he would go to Beirut this week to work with interested parties on a diplomatic solution.

The announcement came after several days of fighting that is considered the deadliest in Lebanon since the end of the civil war in the early 1990s.

The Israeli military said on Thursday it had carried out airstrikes on 75 Hezbollah targets in southern and eastern Lebanon and was continuing to carry out new strikes.

Lebanon's state news agency said an Israeli strike near the town of Baalbek hit a building housing Syrian workers, killing 23 people and wounding eight others.

Lebanese health officials said Israeli strikes killed 50 people on Wednesday, bringing the death toll since Monday to 615 people, with more than 2,000 wounded.

"To all parties, let us say with a clear voice: stop the killing and destruction. Tone down the rhetoric and threats. Do not go towards further escalation," UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the Security Council on Wednesday. "An all-out war must be avoided at all costs. It would undoubtedly be a disaster."/ VOA