The Iran-backed Hezbollah militia has rejected a new ceasefire agreement in Lebanon, and Israel says it will not withdraw troops from the country.The militant group demanded a complete Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon as fighting hampered efforts to end the Iran war.Iran has made a ceasefire in Lebanon a condition for any peace deal with Washington, and has suggested in recent days that it could intervene directly if Israel keeps up attacks there.The Hezbollah announcement came as Israeli strikes killed at least four people, according to local authorities, and a UN peacekeeper was killed in the crossfire.Hezbollah leader Naim Kassem, in a written statement read on TV, called the negotiations "absurd, humiliating and insulting".Israeli forces would not be withdrawing troops from Lebanon, Israel says.
(Reuters: Stringer)He said the agreement's demand that Hezbollah fighters leave southern Lebanon under fire would mean "surrender, defeat and achieving the enemy's goals"."What we are concerned about is an end to the aggression, ceasefire and Israel's withdrawal," he said."So long as our villages are not safe and are being bombed and destroyed and our people are killed," he said, northern Israel will not be safe."Hezbollah had not been party to the negotiations. There was no immediate response from Israel or Lebanon. Trump says he thinks progress is being made on LebanonFollowing the Hezbollah rejection, US President Donald Trump said he believed progress was being made between Israel and Lebanon and that Lebanon deserved to have peace.Mr Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that he had spoken to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and "I actually spoke to Hezbollah about it"."And I think progress is made. It's been going on for a long time, you know," he said.Israel kept up strikes in southern Lebanon, and Defence Minister Israel Katz said Israeli forces would not be withdrawing from the area, which they invaded in March in parallel with the war in Iran.The commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Quds Force, which established Hezbollah in 1982, said Israel must, at a minimum, withdraw to positions it held before the war began.Strikes continue despite US-arranged ceasefireAlong with Lebanon, residents of Gaza, northern Israel and Kuwait have all been under fire this week, despite US-arranged ceasefires that are supposedly in force.The aftermath of an Israeli strike in Gaza City.
