By Liam Stack, Patrick Kingsley and Adam Rasgon
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel instructed his military to keep fighting “with full force” on Thursday, as a high-stakes international diplomatic effort was underway to pause the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel.
Netanyahu was heading to New York for the U.N. General Assembly, even as members of his government dismissed a cease-fire proposal that was put forward by the United States, European allies and several Arab nations and Israel’s military carried out new strikes in Lebanon, including one in Beirut, the capital, that targeted the commander of Hezbollah’s drone unit.
Israel’s foreign minister rejected the proposal in sentiments echoed by lawmakers across the Israeli political spectrum. The prime minister’s office declined to comment on it, but did not explicitly rule out a cease-fire. Hezbollah has not responded to the proposal, which analysts said would be hard for either side to accept because it falls short of their respective conditions for a truce.
However, senior Israeli officials, including Ron Dermer, the prime minister’s closest adviser, have privately discussed the possibility of a cease-fire with their U.S. counterparts, according to two Israeli officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy.
The escalation of the conflict in Lebanon has raised international alarm. A French official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy, said the current escalation could evolve into a full-fledged war between Israel and Hezbollah and that France believes there is only a “narrow window” for a cease-fire deal. The announcement of the proposal Wednesday, the official said, was the result of weeks of coordination between France — which was in touch with Lebanese parties — and the United States, which played the major role in talking to Israel.
Israel and Hezbollah, the powerful Iran-backed militia, have been trading fire since the beginning of the war in the Gaza Strip, but Israel has intensified its attacks over the last week, with one of the biggest bombing campaigns in recent military history. On Wednesday, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, the Israeli military chief of staff, suggested that it was preparing for the possibility of a ground invasion.
Here’s what else to know:
— Parties to the proposal: Hezbollah, which as a militant group does not have the same accountability as a state institution in Lebanon, would not be formally asked to accept the proposal. But it’s not always clear where Hezbollah ends and Lebanon begins. The group, which the United States and many other countries consider a terrorist organization, is a dominant political and military power in the country.
— Fresh strikes: Israel’s military said Thursday that it was striking targets in southern Lebanon in response to a wave of 45 rockets fired into northern Israel. Lebanon’s Health Ministry said 20 people were killed in an Israeli airstrike in Younine, a town in the Bekaa Valley, and that three people were killed in the Tyre district, on the country’s Mediterranean coast. The airstrike in Beirut, which targeted the drone unit commander, killed two people and injured fifteen more, according to the ministry.
— Panic and desperation: Israel’s strikes have killed hundreds of people in Lebanon and have spread panic and desperation. About 500,000 people have been displaced, according to Lebanon’s Foreign Ministry, and civilians have clogged the main roads leading to Beirut, the capital.
— Gaza fears: As world attention focuses on the escalating conflict between Israel and Hezbollah tensions, some Palestinians in Gaza worry that efforts to end the war and humanitarian crisis there will wane. The families of Israeli hostages also worry that their loved ones will be forgotten as Israel’s attention turns to the north.
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