The Israeli military pressed on with its bombing campaign south of Beirut on Saturday, striking a heavily Shiite district outside of Lebanon’s capital as prospects for a cease-fire remained murky.
There was no immediate information about casualties from the strikes on the Dahiya area south of Beirut, which has been hit by a string of bombings this week. The attacks on Saturday came amid a new flurry of Israeli evacuation warnings to local residents and after a round of strikes overnight on the same area.
Israel has said the strikes this week have targeted facilities used by Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Lebanese militia that holds sway in the Dahiya. It has accused the group of hiding “terrorist infrastructure” in residential areas.
The dayslong bombing campaign of Beirut’s southern suburbs has complicated U.S. diplomatic efforts for a truce.
Hezbollah began near daily rocket attacks on Israel last October in solidarity with its ally, Hamas, in Gaza. The conflict intensified in mid-September when Israel stepped up attacks on Hezbollah, culminating in a ground invasion of Lebanon on Oct. 1.
The war has driven roughly one million Lebanese from their homes, and Hezbollah’s rocket attacks on the north of Israel have displaced tens of thousands of Israelis.
The Biden administration has recently renewed its efforts to broker a cease-fire. But there has so far been no public indication that Hezbollah or its patron, Iran, are willing to accept Israel’s demands, which include the withdrawal of Hezbollah from the Israel-Lebanon border.
Israel also wants any cease-fire deal to stipulate that it has the right to attack Hezbollah if the group violates the agreement, a demand rejected by both the armed group and the Lebanese government, which is not a party to the conflict.
A prominent Iranian official, Ali Larijani, met on Friday with Lebanese officials in Beirut to discuss the cease-fire efforts, the Iranian Embassy in Lebanon said. Mr. Larijani, a senior adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, passed messages to Hezbollah from Mr. Khamenei that said he supported ending the war with Israel, according to two Iranians affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The messages also assured Hezbollah that Iran would continue its support and help the group rebuild its forces and recover from the war, they said.
The Iranians, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, said the supreme leader had also told Hezbollah to accept the terms of a cease-fire deal demanding it move its forces north, in accordance with U.N. Security Council resolution 1701, which ended a past round of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.
Nabil Berri, a veteran Lebanese politician and the speaker of parliament, was quoted on Saturday in Al Joumhouria, a Lebanese newspaper, expressing cautious optimism about a potential deal. But he said a recently presented American proposal contained elements that Lebanon’s government considered unacceptable.
He told the newspaper it would be “impossible for us to accept” an agreement that included a stipulation that permitted Israel to attack Lebanese territory again in the future.
“Anything that would affect our sovereignty, even discussing it is rejected,” he said.
In Israel, air raid sirens sounded across the country’s north on Saturday morning as Hezbollah launched new drone and rocket attacks over the border. Israel’s military said the munitions either fell in areas that caused little damage or were intercepted by its air defense systems, creating thundering midair explosions that could be heard in the major northern city of Haifa.
In Gaza, Israeli airstrikes in the southern city of Rafah killed five people and injured several on Saturday, according to Wafa, the state-run media agency of the Palestinian Authority, which is a rival to Hamas.
The post Israel Strikes South of Beirut Amid Questions About Cease-Fire Push appeared first on New York Times.
