Nasrallah and Netanyahu Agreed to Ceasefire Before Airstrike, claims Lebanon’s Foreign Minister

GG News Bureau
Beirut, 3rd Oct. Former Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly agreed to a ceasefire shortly before Nasrallah was killed in an airstrike in Beirut last week. Lebanon’s Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib disclosed this information during an interview with an American public broadcaster, indicating that both the U.S. and French representatives were informed of the ceasefire agreement.

On September 27, Nasrallah was in a bunker located in the southern suburb of Dahiyeh when it was targeted by Israeli bombs. While Hezbollah’s official statement did not provide specifics on how he was killed, sources suggested that his body showed no direct wounds, implying that blunt trauma from the blast’s force may have been the cause of death.

“He agreed, he agreed (to the ceasefire),” Bou Habib confirmed, explaining that Lebanon fully consented to the ceasefire after consultations with Hezbollah. He mentioned that the Lebanese House Speaker, Nabih Berri, also engaged with Hezbollah and communicated the agreement to U.S. and French officials. Bou Habib noted that both nations acknowledged Netanyahu’s concurrence with the ceasefire statement.

This ceasefire discussion came after the United States, France, and other allies proposed a 21-day ceasefire on September 25, following talks between President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron at the UN General Assembly in New York. However, Netanyahu rejected the ceasefire proposal the following day, ordering the military to continue operations with “full force.”

Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had warned Nasrallah days before his death, advising him to flee Lebanon due to intelligence reports indicating that Israeli operatives were planning to kill him. A senior Iranian official revealed that Khamenei sent a senior Revolutionary Guards commander to convey this warning, who was also killed alongside Nasrallah in the airstrike.

Meanwhile, Israel initiated a “limited” ground incursion against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon on Tuesday. The ongoing conflict has resulted in over 1,900 deaths and approximately 9,000 injuries in Lebanon since hostilities escalated following Hamas’s attacks on Israeli towns on October 7 last year, which sparked a war in Gaza.