Hezbollah rejects ceasefire plan as Israel continues Lebanon strikes
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Hezbollah has rejected a ceasefire plan brokered by the United States between Lebanon and Israel, while Israeli forces continued military operations in southern Lebanon. The US announced a day earlier that Lebanon and Israel had agreed to move ahead with a truce under which the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement would halt attacks and withdraw its fighters from border regions in southern Lebanon. However, Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem dismissed the agreement, saying the group had not participated in the negotiations. In a written statement, he described the US-backed proposal as “a roadmap for the annihilation of a section of the Lebanese people and the enslavement of the rest,” calling the talks disgraceful. Qassem said Hezbollah’s resistance against Israel would persist as long as Israeli forces remained in occupied territory. Clashes between Hezbollah and Israel resumed on March 2 after the group launched attacks in solidarity with Tehran during a period of intensified US-Israeli strikes against Iran. Despite multiple ceasefire announcements from Washington since April, the conflict has continued. The fighting has complicated wider diplomatic efforts aimed at easing tensions across the region. Iran has repeatedly insisted that any broader agreement must include an end to Israeli military action in Lebanon. Qassem stressed that a truce would have to cover southern Lebanon, where Israeli troops have established what they describe as a security buffer zone intended to protect northern Israeli communities from Hezbollah attacks. He warned that residents of northern Israel would not feel secure while Lebanese villages continued to face bombardment and destruction. Meanwhile, the commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Quds Force — the organisation credited with helping establish Hezbollah in 1982 — said the “minimum demand of the resistance” was a complete Israeli withdrawal to positions held before the conflict escalated and before Israeli ground incursions into southern