Trump Says He Directly Negotiated a Ceasefire Agreement With Hezbollah, but the Terror Organization Keeps Shooting

President Trump claims that his administration is negotiating directly with Hezbollah to end the war across the Israeli-Lebanese border. Yet the Tehran-backed terror organization claims it never agreed to stop attacking Israel. Qatar facilitated communication with a Hezbollah official based at Doha, a regional source tells the Sun. The Lebanese president, Joseph Aoun, thanked the Qatari premier, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, on Thursday for Doha’s efforts to establish the ceasefire with Israel, Israel Kan reported.Yet the fire never ceased. Northern Israel was attacked on Thursday, less than 24 hours after Washington announced the latest ceasefire agreement between the governments of Lebanon and Israel. Hezbollah and its Iranian patron make clear they were not a party to the new pact. “I spoke to Bibi Netanyahu about that, and I spoke to them about it, and I actually spoke to Hezbollah about it, and I think progress was made,” Mr. Trump said Thursday. “I didn’t know they spoke,” he said earlier of Hezbollah. Hezbollah drones triggered numerous alerts in several northern Israeli border towns abutting Lebanon. An alert to seek shelter blared at one such town, Shlomi, mere minutes after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu concluded meetings with residents there to discuss plans for defending the area. “There were fewer attacks today than last week, but this is exactly what we’re concerned about, the drip-drip-drip scenario,” the founder of Israel’s Alma Research think tank, Sarit Zehavi, who lives near the Lebanese border, tells the Sun. In the new equation, she adds, the aggression from Lebanon is “not drastic enough to justify Israeli strikes against Hezbollah targets at Beirut and beyond, but it’s still impossible for us to live with.”Mr. Trump indicated that despite the ceasefire agreement, he did not expect a full cessation of border hostilities. “In that part of the world, ceasefire is when you’re shooting in a more moderate manner,” he told reporters. He also denied that the Israeli-Lebanese ceasefire pact was linked to negotiations of ending the Iran war. The Tehran regime, though, insists that no agreement with America could be completed before Israel ends its attacks in Lebanon. Mr. Trump’s comment on negotiating with Hezbollah was perhaps meant to convey that Lebanon and the Gulf are two separate arenas. “We actually spoke with Hezbollah for the first time ever,” the president said. “We didn’t know they spoke.” The pact that was signed on Wednesday between Jerusalem and Beirut envoys at the Department of State tracks closely with a 2006 United Nations Security Council resolution that called on Hezbollah to disarm and have no presence near the Israeli border. The Lebanese Armed Force is called on to take over the area south of the Litani river and become the only military force in the country.The Wednesday pact is vague about the prospect of Israel Defense Force withdrawal from areas in southern Lebanon it has captured in the last few months. The Israeli army even widened the so-called “yellow line” this week to include the strategic high point of the Boufort castle. The Beirut government-controlled LAF is powerless to confront the better-armed and more motivated Hezbollah. The IDF is unlikely to relinquish any of the areas it now controls before ensuring Hezbollah is no longer there to threaten northern Israel. The government of President Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam agrees in principle to disarming Hezbollah. It has authorized the Lebanese ambassador to Washington, Nada Hamadeh Moawad, to negotiate directly with her Israeli counterpart, Yechiel Leiter. Messrs. Aoun and Salam hope negotiations would force Israel to leave southern Lebanon under American supervision. Hezbollah, though, is dedicated to the destruction of Israel, claiming that the terror group can defeat the Zionist enemy and force it to leave.“There is a contest of narratives between the Beirut government and Hezbollah over which side is better equipped to get Israel to withdraw from Lebanon,” an Arab affair correspondent at Israel’s Kan news, Roi Kais, says. Hezbollah openly threatens Lebanese officials, including the president and prime minister, who are involved in the Israeli negotiations. “We made no commitment to anyone to stop resisting or responding to aggression,” Hezbollah secretary general Naim Qassem, said on Thursday. “We call on Lebanese officials to end this farce and humiliation called ‘direct negotiations.’”Similarly, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps commander, Esmail Qaani, made clear that Israel must withdraw from Lebanese positions it holds. Iran, he said, is “supporting the resistance in Lebanon is the duty of all of us, and eliminating Israel from the region is an achievable goal for Muslims.”

Trump Says He Directly Negotiated a Ceasefire Agreement With Hezbollah, but the Terror Organization Keeps Shooting

More from the New York Sun

‘60 Minutes’ Correspondent Scott Pelley Fired One Day After Criticizing His Bosses: Will The Network Be Forced To Pay Out His Contract?

Trump Administration Cites Forced Labor For New Tariffs on Dozens of Countries

‘Jerome’ Poignantly Highlights Schemers and Dreamers in the American West

Ukraine Moves Battle Lines With Its Mid-Range Drones

‘You’re On’: Senators Gillibrand and Cruz Bet on the NBA Finals

CMS To Make GLP-1s Eligible to Medicare Patients for $50 a Month

Democrats Get Their Dream Scenario in California with Becerra and Hilton Likely Headed to the Runoff

Social Mobility 101