Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office has announced that Israel backs the United States’s decision to suspend strikes against Iran for two weeks, but said the truce will not apply to Lebanon.
In a statement on X on Wednesday, Netanyahu said that Israel supported US President Donald Trump’s efforts to ensure “Iran no longer poses a nuclear, missile and terror threat to America, Israel, Iran’s Arab neighbours and the world”.
He said the US has told Israel that it is committed to achieving these goals in the upcoming negotiations in Pakistan on Friday.
But the two-week ceasefire “does not include Lebanon”, he added.
Netanyahu’s statement comes after Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif announced that the US, Iran and their allies “have agreed to an immediate ceasefire everywhere, including Lebanon and elsewhere”.
Sharif said the move was “effective immediately”.
Lebanon was drawn into the US and Israel’s war on Iran on March 2 after Tehran-aligned Hezbollah launched attacks on Israel.
Hezbollah said the attacks were in retaliation for Israel’s killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on the first day of the war on February 28, as well as its near-daily violations of a ceasefire it agreed to in Lebanon in November 2024.
The earlier truce was agreed after more than a year of cross-border fire between Israeli forces and Hezbollah following Israel’s launch of its genocidal war on Gaza in October 2023.
According to Lebanese authorities, Israeli attacks on Lebanon since March 2 have killed more than 1,500 people and displaced more than 1 million people.
The Israeli military has also launched an invasion of southern Lebanon and said it aims to seize more territory for what it calls a buffer zone.
There’s been no immediate comment from Hezbollah or Lebanon on Netanyahu’s announcement. (Al Jazeera)
