US Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke with both Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the diplomatic negotiations between Israel and Lebanon and has proposed a plan to allow for “gradual de-escalation,” a US official said on Sunday.
The US has proposed that as a first step, the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group would stop all attacks on Israel and in return Israel would refrain from escalation in Beirut, the official said.
“This would create space for gradual de-escalation and an effective cessation of hostilities,” according to the official.
They added that Aoun tried to advance the proposal and secure an agreement. However, Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, who claimed to “guarantee” Hezbollah’s commitment to a ceasefire, placed the burden on Israel to stop “shooting first.” Netanyahu had said on Sunday that he ordered troops to move further into Lebanon in the battle against Hezbollah, despite a ceasefire announced more than six weeks ago.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a statement on Monday ordered the military to attack targets in the Lebanese capital Beirut’s southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold known as Dahiyeh.
Israeli soldier killed in south Lebanon
The Israeli army announced that one of its soldiers had been killed on Monday in fighting in southern Lebanon, bringing to 26 the number of Israeli military deaths since early March.
Staff Sergeant Adam Tzarfati, 20, “fell in combat in southern Lebanon,” the army said in a brief statement.
In total, 26 Israelis have been killed — 25 soldiers and one civilian contractor — since hostilities between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah resumed on March 2, when the Shiite militant group reopened the front in support of Tehran, following US-Israeli strikes on Iran.
‘Vicious Israeli aggression’
Aoun said on Monday that his country is facing a “fierce Israeli aggression,” a day after the Israeli army announced it had captured the strategic Beaufort Castle in southern Lebanon and its intention to expand its offensive against Hezbollah.
In a statement, Aoun said that Lebanon “is facing a fierce and condemnable Israeli aggression,” vowing to “work to end the suffering of the Lebanese people in general, and the southerners in particular, and put an end to their ordeal.”
In the latest advance, Israeli troops seized the 900-year-old Beaufort Castle and a strategic ridge in southern Lebanon, the military said earlier on Sunday, a day after one of the heaviest days of Hezbollah fire toward northern Israel since the April ceasefire, prompting school closures and restrictions.
The US official said that the US did not expect Israel to absorb ongoing attacks on its civilians from Hezbollah.
