By Timour Azhari
BEIRUT (Reuters) -Hezbollah welcomes any effort to cease the conflict in Lebanon however doesn’t pin hopes for a ceasefire on any specific U.S. administration, Hezbollah lawmaker Ibrahim al-Moussawi mentioned on Thursday when requested about Donald Trump’s election victory.
“It might be a change in the party who is in power, but when it comes to Israel, they have more or less the same policy,” Moussawi informed Reuters. “We want to see actions, we want to see decisions taken.”
Israel and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah have exchanged hearth for greater than a yr, in parallel with the Gaza conflict, however combating has escalated since late September, with Israeli troops intensifying bombing of Lebanon’s south and east and making floor incursions into border villages.
Israel says it’s concentrating on Hezbollah infrastructure and navy property, whereas avoiding civilians. Hezbollah and Lebanese officers level to the rising dying toll, with greater than 3,000 killed since October 2023, and widespread destruction within the nation as proof Israel’s hearth is indiscriminate.
U.S. diplomatic efforts to halt combating between Israel and Hezbollah, which included a 60-day ceasefire proposal, faltered final week forward of the U.S. election on Tuesday through which former president Trump recaptured the White Home.
Moussawi acknowledged the heavy toll of Israeli assaults which have blown aside 1000’s of buildings, principally in Lebanon’s Shi’ite Muslim-dominated south and east and the southern suburbs of the capital Beirut. However he mentioned the group’s navy capabilities remained sturdy.
“Our hearts are broken – we are losing very dear lives. This feeling that (Israel) cannot be punished or brought to international justice is a result of U.S. support which renders them immune to accountability,” he mentioned.
“America is a full partner in what’s happening because they can exercise influence to stop this destruction.”
Massad Boulos, a Lebanese-American billionaire who’s the father-in-law of Trump’s daughter Tiffany, denied a report revealed this week by Lebanese broadcaster Al Jadeed that had quoted him saying he could be Trump’s envoy in command of negotiating with the Lebanese facet to achieve a deal to finish the conflict. Boulos informed Reuters that the report was “totally wrong”.
The Israeli authorities celebrated Trump’s return to energy, saying he was a frontrunner who would assist them “unconditionally”.
STRIKE AT ARMY CHECKPOINT
The Israeli navy mentioned on Thursday that 5 troopers had been killed and 16 wounded in a fight incident in southern Lebanon. It didn’t say precisely when the incident occurred.
In a single day on Wednesday, Israel carried out a sequence of strikes in Beirut’s southern suburbs, together with at the very least one simply tens of metres (yards) from Beirut airport’s runways.
Lebanese Transport Minister Ali Hamiye mentioned the airport was functioning usually on Thursday.
One other Israeli strike on Thursday on a automotive at a Lebanese military checkpoint on the entrance to the southern metropolis of Sidon killed three folks and wounded three Lebanese troopers and 4 members of a U.N. peacekeeping contingent, the Lebanese military mentioned in a press release.
A Reuters reporter on the scene mentioned a bus with United Nations markings that was half of a big convoy of U.N. peacekeepers had sustained injury within the strike.
UNIFIL, the peacekeeping pressure, mentioned in a press release that 5 newly-arrived peacekeepers have been frivolously injured within the Sidon drone strike and handled on the spot.
On Wednesday, an Israeli airstrike destroyed an Ottoman-era constructing close to the famed UNESCO-listed historical temples of Baalbek in jap Lebanon, the area’s governor and an organisation that has organised cultural occasions there mentioned on Thursday.
Governor Bachir Khodr informed Reuters the strike hit the empty heritage constructing within the closest assault but to the advanced of Greco-Roman and Phoenician temples that make up the World Heritage Website, simply meters away.
“It’s a very artisanal neighbourhood, typically full of tourists,” he mentioned.
