By James Mackenzie and Timour Azhari
JERUSALEM/BEIRUT (Reuters) – Israel will continue to discuss ceasefire proposals for Lebanon in the days ahead, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday, as Washington warned that further escalation would only make it harder for civilians on both sides to return home.
Israel’s foreign minister on Thursday rejected global calls for a ceasefire with the Iran-backed Hezbollah group and pressed ahead with airstrikes that have killed hundreds in Lebanon and heightened fears of a regional war.
An Israeli strike on Friday killed nine members of a family, including four children, in the Lebanese border town of Shebaa, mayor Mohammad Saab told Reuters. Israeli attacks have killed more than 600 people in Lebanon since Monday, the health ministry says.
Hezbollah said it had fired rockets into Israel on Friday at Kiryat Ata near the city of Haifa some 30 km (20 miles) from the border, and the city of Tiberias, declaring the attacks a response to Israel strikes on villages, cities and civilians.
Though Israeli air defences have shot down many of Hezbollah’s rockets, limiting the damage they’ve done, the group’s attacks have shut down normal life across much of northern Israel as more areas fall into its crosshairs.
The Israeli military said it had intercepted four unmanned aircraft that crossed from Lebanese territory into the maritime space off the coast of Rosh Hanikra at the Lebanese border.
The conflict between Israeli forces and the heavily armed Hezbollah is their worst in more than 18 years and part of the regional spillover of the Gaza war.
The United States and France proposed an immediate 21-day truce on Wednesday, and said negotiations continued, including on the sidelines of a United Nations meeting in New York.
Netanyahu said on Friday that Israeli teams had meetings to discuss the U.S. ceasefire proposals on Thursday and would continue discussions in the days ahead, adding that he appreciated the U.S. efforts.
“Our teams met (Sept. 26) to discuss the U.S. initiative and how we can advance the shared goal of returning people safely to their homes. We will continue those discussions in the coming days,” he said in a statement.
On Thursday, after Netanyahu left for New York where he is attending the United Nations General Assembly, his office issued a statement saying the prime minister had ordered Israeli troops to continue fighting with full force in Lebanon.
His statement made no reference to the comments of Foreign Minister Israel Katz, who on Thursday rejected ceasefire proposals, or other Israeli politicians who have echoed that position, saying only that there had been “a lot of misreporting around the U.S.-led ceasefire initiative”.
BLINKEN STRESSES IMPORTANCE OF CEASEFIRE
Israel says its campaign aims to secure the return home of tens of thousands of Israelis who have been forced to evacuate areas near the Lebanese border over the last year of hostilities with Hezbollah.
Hezbollah began firing at Israel on Oct. 8 as the Gaza war began, declaring solidarity with the Palestinians. Hezbollah has said it will only cease fire when Israel’s Gaza offensive ends.
In Lebanon, more than 90,000 people have been reported as newly displaced this week, according to the U.N. International Organisation for Migration (IOM), adding to more than 111,000 already uprooted by the conflict.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Israel on Thursday that further escalation to the conflict will only make it harder for civilians to return home on both sides of the border, the State Department said.
“The Secretary discussed the importance of reaching an agreement on the 21 day ceasefire across the Israel-Lebanon border,” the State Department said in a statement referring to talks between Blinken and Israeli Minister for Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer.
“He underscored that further escalation of the conflict will only make that objective (of civilian return) more difficult.”
The State Department added that Blinken also discussed efforts to reach a ceasefire in Gaza and steps that Israel needs to take to improve delivery of humanitarian assistance in the enclave where nearly the entire 2.3 million population is displaced and faces a hunger crisis.
(Additional reporting by Tom Perry in Beirut; Jana Choukeir and Nadine Awadalla in Dubai Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Ros Russell)
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