Israel presses airstrikes as Beirut awaits truce ideas

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By Riham Alkousaa and Steven Scheer

BEIRUT/JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Israeli airstrikes pounded Beirut’s Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs for a second consecutive day on Wednesday, as Lebanon waited to hear Washington’s latest ceasefire proposals after a U.S. official expressed hope a truce could be reached.

More than seven weeks since Israel went on the offensive against Iran-backed Hezbollah, mid-morning airstrikes levelled half a dozen buildings in the Beirut suburb known as Dahiyeh and killed eight people in Dawhit Aramoun, a village south of the capital. The dead included three women and three children, Lebanon’s health ministry said.

“They used to hit Dahiyeh at night, now they are doing it in daytime. Things are intensifying day after day,” said Hassan Moussa, 40, speaking in Beirut, adding that Israeli airstrikes had also widened to areas such as Aramoun.

Israel launched a major air and ground offensive against the heavily armed Hezbollah in late September after nearly a year of cross-border conflict fought in parallel with the Gaza war.

The Israeli military said its air force had destroyed nine Hezbollah weapons storage facilities and command centres in strikes in the Beirut area, and that Hezbollah fired 40 projectiles into Israel on Wednesday. Six Israeli soldiers had been killed in combat in southern Lebanon, the military said.

It said a heavy barrage of rockets was fired later in the day from Lebanon at Israel, where sirens sounded in the central areas. There were no immediate reports of any damage or casualties from that attack.

White House envoy Amos Hochstein, the U.S. official who has led several fruitless attempts to broker a ceasefire over the last year, told Axios that he thought “there is a shot” at a truce in Lebanon soon. “I am hopeful we can get it.”

His comments point to a last-ditch bid by the outgoing administration of U.S. President Joe Biden to secure a Lebanon ceasefire as diplomacy to end the Gaza war appears adrift, with mediator Qatar having suspended its role.

The United States and other world powers say a ceasefire in Lebanon must be based on U.N. Security Council resolution 1701 which ended a war between the sides in 2006. The resolution demands that the areas of south Lebanon near the Israeli border be free of any weapons other than those of the Lebanese state.

Israel long complained it was never implemented, pointing to Hezbollah weapons and fighters at the border. Lebanon in turn accused Israel of violating the resolution, with Israeli warplanes regularly violating its airspace.

Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, a political ally of Hezbollah and endorsed by it to negotiate, was quoted as saying that Lebanon was awaiting concrete ceasefire proposals and had not been informed officially of any new ideas.

“What is on the table is only Resolution 1701 and its provisions, which must be implemented and adhered to by both sides, not by the Lebanese side alone,” Berri, who helped negotiate the 2006 truce, told Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper.

Israel wants the right to intervene itself to enforce any ceasefire if it deems it necessary, noting the presence of U.N. peacekeepers in south Lebanon had not stopped Hezbollah from building forces in the area.

ISRAELI WARNING

There were no immediate reports of casualties in Wednesday’s Israeli strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs, which residents have been largely evacuated.

The Israeli military earlier issued a statement on social media saying it would act soon against targets in the area, warning residents they were located near Hezbollah facilities.

Tuesday’s Israeli airstrikes, also carried out mid-morning, flattened around a dozen buildings in Dahiyeh.

Hezbollah said it used drones to attack Tel Aviv’s Hakirya military base for the first time. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on Hezbollah’s statement and no sirens were reported by the military in Tel Aviv.

On Monday, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said there had been “a certain progress” in ceasefire talks over Lebanon, though the main challenge would be enforcement.

Israel’s new Defence Minister Israel Katz said there would be no ceasefire or arrangement in Lebanon that did not include Israel’s right to enforce and act on its own against Hezbollah.

Several diplomats said it would be all but impossible to get Hezbollah or Lebanon to accept any proposal that included this demand.

Since hostilities erupted a year ago, Israeli attacks have killed at least 3,365 people in Lebanon, the majority in the last seven weeks, according to the Lebanese health ministry. Its figures do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.

Hezbollah attacks have killed about 100 civilians and soldiers in northern Israel, the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and southern Lebanon over the last year, according to Israel.

A Hezbollah attack on Tuesday killed two people in the city of Nahariya in northern Israel. Hezbollah later claimed responsibility for a drone attack that it said was aimed at a military base east of Nahariya.

(Reporting by Timour Azhari, Riham AlKousaa, Haidar Kadhim Nour and Joelle Kozaily in Beirut; James Mackenzie and Steven Scheer in Jerusalem; Clauda Tanios, Jaidaa Taha, Tala Ramadan and Yomna Ehab in Dubai; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Gareth Jones, Peter Graff, Philippa Fletcher)