Hezbollah has pushed back against a US-mediated ceasefire deal between Israel and Lebanon, with a top leader saying that accepting demands to leave southern Lebanon would amount to “surrender” for the group.
The deal reportedly would have allowed Israeli forces to remain in a buffer zone in southern Lebanon while barring attacks on Beirut unless Hezbollah strikes inside Israeli territory. It would also have required Hezbollah fighters to vacate the buffer area.
“We did not make any commitment to any party to stop resisting as long as there is occupation,” Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem said in a televised statement on Thursday, according to the Associated Press.
The rejection comes as the US House of Representatives voted on Wednesday to rebuke President Donald Trump and his war on Iran, narrowly passing a resolution limiting Trump’s power to continue the war without congressional approval.
Four Republicans voted with Democrats on the bill, signalling that opposition to the war – launched jointly by Trump and Israel in February – is crossing party lines ahead of the US midterm elections.
Trump called the vote “meaningless” in a social media post on Thursday morning.
“Yesterday, in a meaningless vote, the House voted, 4 bad Republicans and all of the Dumocrats, to limit my War Powers, right in the middle of my final negotiations to end the War with the Islamic Republic of Iran,” he wrote. “Who would do such an unpatriotic thing.”
The bill now goes to the Senate, where a similar measure has advanced in recent weeks.
The apparent rejection of the ceasefire deal marks another setback for truce efforts. An uncertain ceasefire struck in early April has now stretched on without a resolution for longer than the period of active hostilities. Trump has failed to achieve the terms for a permanent deal he said he wanted, and this week remarked that the constant negotiations had grown “very boring.”
Meanwhile, Iran struck Kuwait’s main airport on Wednesday, killing one person and injuring 60.
Trump also confirmed reports that he had called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “f—ing crazy” during a call on Monday in which he pressed Netanyahu to strike a ceasefire with Hezbollah.
