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Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel “shares the aims” of a US-led proposal for a ceasefire with Hizbollah, after officials in Washington reacted with frustration to his insistence that Israel would continue striking the Lebanese militant group with “full force”.
US President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday put forward a proposal for a 21-day ceasefire in a last-ditch attempt to prevent the hostilities between Israel and Hizbollah spiralling into a full-blown war.
US officials said the call for the ceasefire had been co-ordinated with Israel, and a diplomat said the US had expected Netanyahu to take a positive stance on the deal on his arrival on Thursday in New York, where he is due to address the UN General Assembly later on Friday.
But instead, after a string of far-right members of his government had criticised the proposal, Netanyahu said, after landing, that Israel would continue striking Hizbollah and not “stop until we achieve all our objectives — first and foremost the return of the northern residents to their homes securely”.
In a statement released by his office on Friday morning, Netanyahu said that Israel “shares the aims of the US-led initiative of enabling people along our northern border to return safely and securely to their homes”.
“Israel appreciates the US efforts in this regard because the US role is indispensable in advancing stability and security in the region,” the statement continued, adding that discussions between US and Israeli officials would continue “in the coming days”.
Israel has stated one of its war aims is to ensure that Israel’s northern border region is safe enough to allow more than 60,000 people displaced by Hizbollah rocket fire to return to their homes.
US officials hope the truce would allow time to negotiate a more durable ceasefire between Israel and Hizbollah, and also put pressure on Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas to accept the terms of a ceasefire-for-hostages deal in Gaza.
Two people familiar with the situation told the Financial Times on Thursday that the US was hoping that Netanyahu would use his address to the UN on Friday to announce that Israel’s war in Gaza was moving to a new phase, which might persuade Hizbollah — which has insisted that it will not stop firing at Israel until the offensive against Hamas is over — to agree to a temporary truce.
But amid a chorus of criticism from Israeli politicians of the plan, Israel continued to strike targets in Lebanon on Thursday, including carrying out a strike in the southern suburb of Dahiyeh that killed the commander of Hizbollah’s aerial operations, Mohammed Srour.
The strike came amid a massive escalation of Israel’s operations against the Iran-backed group, during which it has assassinated a string of commanders, and launched an intense bombing campaign in Lebanon which has killed more than 600 people and displaced 90,000.
The hostilities continued on Friday morning, with the Israeli military saying that Hizbollah had launched 10 rockets in the direction of the northern port city of Haifa.
During the night, the military said that Israel’s Arrow air defence system had intercepted a surface-to-surface missile which had been launched at the country from Yemen.