Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah agreed to a ceasefire yesterday, after an escalation in hostilities in Lebanon sorely tested the United States-Iranian interim deal to end the wider Middle East conflict.A senior Israeli official and two Hezbollah sources confirmed the ceasefire to Reuters, which a U.S. official said was due to begin at 4 p.m yesterday.
“If Hezbollah does not attack us, then for us it is not a time of war,” the Israeli official said. Israeli forces would remain in southern Lebanon, the official told Ruters.Two Lebanese security sources said Israel carried out a dozen airstrikes in the first hour after the ceasefire came into effect, but none were recorded after 5 p.m.An Israeli military official confirmed that there had been no strikes since 5 p.m. but denied that Israel had carried out a dozen strikes after 4 p.m.
At around 8 p.m Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) said a drone strike killed two people on a motorbike on a southern Lebanese highway.The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the drone attack.Israeli airstrikes had killed at least 47 people in Lebanon since midnight, the Lebanese health ministry reported. Israel reported four of its soldiers killed in south Lebanon in one of the deadliest Hezbollah attacks of the war.
