Hamas has expressed willingness to support a ceasefire in Lebanon, even though its ally Hezbollah has reneged on its pledge to continue fighting Israel as long as hostilities persist in Gaza.
“Any announcement of a ceasefire is welcome. Hezbollah has stood by our people and made significant sacrifices,” Osama Hamdan, a top Hamas political official in Lebanon, told the Hezbollah-affiliated, Beirut-based Al Mayadeen TV news channel.
Channel 12 quoted a Hamas source as saying “We will not stop the fire even when Hezbollah does so.” While Hamas rocket fire has significantly decreased since the early days of the war as the IDF has severely degraded the terror group’s capabilities, it has not been eliminated and the terror group still commits small, sporadic launches.
Hezbollah has launched some 16,000 rockets, missiles and drones at Israel since joining the war in support of Hamas on Oct. 8, 2023, a day after the Gaza-based terror organization’s massacre in southern Israel.
More than 60,000 residents of northern Israel remain internally displaced due to the ongoing attacks from the Land of the Cedars. The cross-border attacks have killed 76 people in Israel, including 31 IDF soldiers and six foreign nationals, and have wounded 729 more, 66 of them seriously.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to convene his Cabinet on Tuesday amid reports that Israel is set to approve a truce in the war against Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon.
Hezbollah’s decoupling of its conflict with Israel from that of Hamas in Gaza marks a major reversal for the Iranian terror proxy. As early as last month, Hezbollah Deputy Secretary-General Naim Qassem staunchly rejected calls to separate a ceasefire in Lebanon from the situation in Gaza.
“We insisted on the demand for a ceasefire in Gaza—and we did not agree to their request to separate Lebanon from Gaza,” Qassem declared.
Qassem replaced terror master Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israel Defense Forces strike on Hezbollah’s headquarters in Beirut on Sept. 27.
