As Israel-Hezbollah grips, Biden announces new Hamas push in Gaza

Like ceasefire the US helped broker between Israel and the Iran-backed group Hezbollah began work on Wednesday, President Biden said his administration would be quick to launch “further pressure” with international partners to find an agreement to end the killings. war in the Gaza Strip.

Mr Biden, who has less than two months left in office, said on social media on Wednesday morning that his administration would work in the coming days with Israel and other allies in the region to “achieve a ceasefire in Gaza [Israeli] the hostages were released and the war ended without Hamas in power.”

A US and French moratorium that helped prevent a ceasefire between the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah and Israel looks set to be lifted on Wednesday hours after it went into effect. However, there was an unconfirmed claim from the head of Lebanon's national press that Israeli forces in or near the city of Khiam opened fire on “a group of journalists and correspondents” there, allegedly leaving two – one with the Associated Press. and the Russian company Sputnik – with unspecified injuries.

Lebanon's state-run National News Agency cited the group's head, Joseph Al-Qasifi, as “the first violation of the ceasefire.”

CBS News has requested comment from the Associated Press and the Israel Defense Forces regarding the targeted incident.

The war in Lebanon escalated for months after Hezbollah began launching rockets into northern Israel in support of its Hamas allies, a day after Hamas carried out its Oct. 7, 2023 in Israel, which started the war in Gaza. That attack saw Hamas and allied militants kill about 1,200 people in Israel and capture another 250.

The volume of rockets and missiles along the Israel-Lebanon border increased sharply in September, and Lebanese officials said nearly 3,800 people had been killed by the time the truce began Wednesday morning. Israeli authorities say Hezbollah rocket attacks killed 45 civilians last year, and at least 73 Israeli soldiers were killed during operations in southern Lebanon.

But the agreement between Israel and Hezbollah did not mention the war in Gaza, which sits at the center of tensions in the Middle East. Health officials in the Hamas-ruled Palestinian territory say Israel's offensive in Gaza has killed more than 44,280 people and injured another 104,000. Most of the enclave's 2.3 million people have been forced from their homes, many of them forced to flee several times in the past year.

“Just as the people of Lebanon deserve a future of security and prosperity, so do the people of Gaza. They also deserve an end to fighting and displacement,” said Mr. Biden on Tuesday at the White House. “The people of Gaza have gone through hell.”

Hamas said it was open to renewed talks to end the fighting in Gaza on Wednesday, and a senior official in the group told French news agency AFP that it had “informed negotiators in Egypt, Qatar and Turkey that Hamas is ready for a ceasefire and serious action.” .”

The Reuters news agency quoted the head of Hamas, Sami Abu Zuhri, as saying that the group recognizes the right of Lebanon to participate in the ceasefire with Israel, to protect its people, and expressed the hope that an agreement to end the war in Gaza is possible again after many months of mostly fruitless talks.

Mr. Biden said the US would work with “Turkey, Egypt, Qatar, Israel, and others” to broker an agreement between Israel and Hamas, and the Egyptian government announced Wednesday that President Adel Fattah El-Sisi had agreed. with the visiting Qatari prime minister to review “joint efforts aimed at ending the war in Gaza, joint efforts to secure the release of hostages and unconditional access to humanitarian aid and assistance in Gaza. strip.”

Earlier on Wednesday, King Abdullah II of Jordan also visited Cairo and met with el-Sisi, discussing the ceasefire in Lebanon and the latest developments in Gaza, according to Egyptian officials.

But while the negotiators are renewing their efforts in Gaza, they will be focusing more on Israel's border in northern Lebanon, as there is an international will after ending the fighting with Hezbollah rather than mutual trust between the long-time enemies.

Israel and Hezbollah had been exchanging fire with each other until the start of Wednesday's operation. It will now be intense to see if the peace holds during the 60-day period in which Israeli troops, who crossed the border in early October, gradually withdraw from the former Hezbollah stronghold in southern Lebanon. They will be replaced by Lebanese and United Nations troops during the US-French-led operation.

In the next two months, Israel must withdraw all its forces from Lebanon and Hezbollah must pull its fighters and weapons back about 20 miles north of the border, across the Litani River.

But mistrust on both sides of the border – the so-called Blue Line established after the last Israel-Hezbollah war in 2006 – runs deep. Both Mr Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stressed on Tuesday that, in the words of the Israeli leader: “If Hezbollah breaks the agreement and tries to rearm, we will attack.”

“For every violation of the law,” Netanyahu said, “we will attack with force.”

Speaking Wednesday on “CBS Mornings,” US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said the Biden administration helped cut the deal based on past successes, as well as failures.

“We have learned from the past,” he said, “and designed this agreement to be long-term and to remain effective – to continue to maintain peace and ensure the security of the State of Israel.”

The war between Israel and Hezbollah drove hundreds of thousands of Lebanese from their homes in the south, and about 60,000 Israelis from their communities near the border in the north.

“It is not safe to go home,” said Israeli Eliyahu Maman as the silence silenced the rocket fire, “because Hezbollah can still hurt us.”

On the other side of the border, Beirut resident Rima Abdkhaluk said she “does not believe in this suspension … Israel cannot be trusted.”

But the lack of trust or warnings from Israeli and Lebanese officials not to return to areas evacuated during the Israeli offensive since October is enough to prevent thousands of Lebanese citizens from packing their belongings back into cars and crowding the highways to try to get back. at their homes in the south on Wednesday.

The other two million Palestinians in Gaza will be hoping that they, too, can get a chance to restart their disrupted lives in the coming weeks. The families of about 100 Israeli hostages still being held in the Gaza Strip will hope that a renewed push to end the conflict with Hamas can also bring their loved ones home.

contributed to this report.