BEIRUT (news agencies) — Israel’s military launched airstrikes across Lebanon on Monday, unleashing explosions throughout the country and killing at least 12 while Israeli leaders appeared to be closing in on a negotiated ceasefire with the Hezbollah militant group.
Israeli strikes hit commercial and residential buildings in Beirut as well as in the port city of Tyre. Military officials said they targeted areas known as Hezbollah strongholds. They issued evacuation orders for Beirut’s southern suburbs, and strikes landed across the city, including meters from a Lebanese police base and the city’s largest public park.
The barrage came as officials indicated they were nearing agreement on a ceasefire, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Security Cabinet prepared to discuss an offer on the table.
Massive explosions lit up Lebanon’s skies with flashes of orange, sending towering plumes of smoke into the air as Israeli airstrikes pounded Beirut’s southern suburbs Monday. The blasts damaged buildings and left shattered glass and debris scattered across nearby streets. No casualties were reported after many residents fled the targeted sites.
Some of the strikes landed close to central Beirut and near Christian neighborhoods and other targets where Israel had issued evacuation warnings, including in Tyre and Nabatieh province. Israeli airstrikes also hit the northeast Baalbek-Hermel region without warning.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry said Monday that at least 12 people were killed in the strikes in the Tyre province, adding to the more than 3,700 people in Lebanon who have been killed since Israel launched its invasion two months ago. Many of those killed since the start of the war between Israel and Hezbollah have been civilians, and health officials said some of the recovered bodies were so severely damaged that DNA testing would be required to confirm their identities.
Israel says it has killed more than 2,000 Hezbollah members. Lebanon’s Health Ministry says the war has displaced 1.2 million people.
The latest round of airstrikes came weeks after Israeli ground forces invaded southern Lebanon in early October, meeting heavy resistance in a narrow strip of land along the border. The military had previously exchanged attacks across the border with Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militant group that began firing rockets into Israel the day after the war in Gaza began last year.
Lebanese politicians have decried the ongoing airstrikes and said they are impeding U.S.-led ceasefire negotiations. The country’s deputy parliament speaker accused Israel of ramping up its bombardment in order to pressure Lebanon to make concessions in indirect ceasefire negotiations with Hezbollah.
Elias Bousaab, an ally of the militant group, said Monday that the pressure has increased because “we are close to the hour that is decisive regarding reaching a ceasefire.”
Israeli officials voiced similar optimism Monday about prospects for a ceasefire. Mike Herzog, the country’s ambassador to Washington, earlier in the day told Israeli Army Radio that several points had yet to be finalized. Though any deal would require agreement from the government, Herzog said Israel and Hezbollah were “close to a deal.”
“It can happen within days,” he said.
Israeli officials have said the sides are close to an agreement that would include withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon and a pullback of Hezbollah fighters from the Israeli border. But several sticking points remain.
Two Israeli officials told media that Netanyahu’s security Cabinet had scheduled a meeting for Tuesday, but they said it remained unclear whether the Cabinet would vote to approve the deal. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were discussing internal deliberations.
Danny Danon, Israel’s U.N. ambassador, told reporters Monday that he expected a ceasefire agreement with Hezbollah to have stages and to be discussed by leaders Monday or Tuesday. Still, he warned, “it’s not going to happen overnight.”
After previous hopes for a ceasefire were dashed, U.S. officials cautioned that negotiations were not yet complete and noted that there could be last-minute hitches that either delay or destroy an agreement.
“Nothing is done until everything is done,” White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Monday.
The proposal under discussion to end the fighting calls for an initial two-month ceasefire during which Israeli forces would withdraw from Lebanon and Hezbollah would end its armed presence along the southern border south of the Litani River.
The withdrawals would be accompanied by an influx of thousands more Lebanese army troops, who have been largely sidelined in the war, to patrol the border area along with an existing U.N. peacekeeping force.
Western diplomats and Israeli officials said Israel is demanding the right to strike in Lebanon if it believes Hezbollah is violating the terms. The Lebanese government has said that such an arrangement would authorize violations of the country’s sovereignty.
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