Lebanon announces limited Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire as fighting persists

BEIRUT: Lebanon said on Monday that a partial ceasefire had been reached between Israel and Hezbollah, setting out a limited easing of hostilities in a conflict that has killed thousands and become tied to the wider US-Israeli war with Iran.

According to Lebanon's embassy in Washington, the arrangement does not amount to a full end to the war in Lebanon. Under the understanding, Israel is to avoid strikes on Beirut and Hezbollah-held suburbs of the capital, while Hezbollah is to stop attacking Israel.

Fighting nevertheless continued in southern Lebanon on Monday evening. Early on Tuesday, the Israeli military said it had intercepted two projectiles fired from Lebanon into northern Israel and that there were no injuries.

US President Donald Trump first announced the agreement and said Hezbollah, through intermediaries, had committed not to attack Israel. No US president has spoken with Hezbollah directly or through intermediaries, and that Washington designates the group as a terrorist organisation.

Trump also said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had agreed to pull back troops that had been preparing to move on Beirut. But after Trump's announcement, Netanyahu said Israel would keep up military operations in southern Lebanon, where Israeli ground forces are advancing towards the Zaharani River in their deepest push into Lebanon in 25 years.

Hezbollah position and planned talks

Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah said the group would back a comprehensive ceasefire across all of Lebanon as a first step towards the withdrawal of Israeli troops. He did not say whether Hezbollah would halt its attacks on Israeli territory.

Lebanon said it would seek to broaden the ceasefire during talks with Israel due in Washington on Wednesday.

The move could revive attempts to end the three-month war that began with US and Israeli attacks on Iran. Negotiations have remained stalled for weeks under a fragile ceasefire because the parties have not been able to agree on an opening framework for peace talks.

The war between Israel and Hezbollah began on March 2 as an extension of the broader regional conflict and has remained linked to it since then. Iran has said any agreement to end the war must include an end to Israeli attacks in Lebanon, while the United States has maintained that the two theatres are separate.

In a statement, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said:

"The ceasefire between Iran and the US is unequivocally a ceasefire on all fronts, including in Lebanon"

Iran signals harder line on negotiations

Earlier on Monday, Iranian state media reported that Tehran was stopping indirect peace talks with the United States and could also end a ceasefire that has largely held since early April, citing the war in Lebanon.

There was no direct confirmation from Iranian officials. Trump told an NBC reporter that he had not heard from Iran. In a CNBC interview on Monday, he said the talks had become uninteresting and that their fate did not matter to him.

"I really don't care, I couldn't care less"

Since mid-March, Trump has repeatedly said he was close to concluding a peace agreement, but no deal has been signed. Despite the ceasefire, Iran and the United States have carried out strikes on each other several times over the past week.

Separately, Esmaeil Qaani, who heads Iran's Revolutionary Guards Quds Force, threatened to widen Iran's blockade from the Strait of Hormuz to the Bab El Mandeb Strait at the entrance to the Red Sea.

Iran has already disrupted maritime traffic in the Gulf, through which one-fifth of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas had moved before the war, pushing prices sharply upward. Oil prices rose 4% on Monday amid the latest escalation.