Hezbollah MP hints group ready for Lebanon ceasefire deal without Gaza truce

A Hezbollah MP has hinted his party is ready for a ceasefire deal with Israel, weeks after an intense Israeli bombardment of Lebanon started that has taken out senior figures in the group.

Hezbollah has fired scores of rockets into Israel since 8 October 2023 in solidarity with the people of Gaza, saying it would only cease its strikes if the war on the Palestinian enclave is ended.

With much of Hezbollah's leadership taken out and hundreds of Lebanese civilians killed in an intensification of Israel's air war on Lebanon, but with Israeli soldiers still unable to make breakthroughs on the ground in southern Lebanon,  the group has now hinted it's ready for a truce

"There was a statement…from a number of countries calling for a ceasefire, which Lebanon agreed to. The one who rejected this statement was the Zionist enemy [Israel]," MP Hussein Hajj Hassan told the Al Jazeera broadcaster over the weekend.

Hassan was referring to a joint statement made by French President Emmanuel Macron and his US counterpart Joe Biden on September 25, which proposed a 21-day truce in Lebanon to give time for negotiations for a longer-lasting ceasefire deal with Israel.

The call was backed by several American and French allies and came only two days after Israel began a deadly aerial campaign in Lebanon, carrying out massive airstrikes and killing hundreds.

But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused the proposal, insisting on continuing efforts to destroy Hezbollah’s military capabilities

"Netanyahu had said he agreed to the statement but then backtracked, and this is a key point. Lebanon agreed to this statement, and [Parliament] Speaker Nabih Berri and Prime Minister Najib Mikati renewed their commitment to this [ceasefire] proposal," Hassan told Al Jazeera.

When asked if this meant whether Hezbollah would agree to a ceasefire deal regardless of the situation in Gaza, Hassan said: "To us, the priority is a ceasefire and we are open to any future discussions, that can happen only after a ceasefire."

While Hassan did not explicitly mention Gaza in his remarks, his comments seemed to suggest that his party was ready for an immediate cessation of hostilities without the war on the enclave being a condition.

Last week, Lebanon's caretaker Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib revealed that slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah had agreed to a "complete ceasefire" just before he was assassinated by Israel on 27 September. The US State Department denied Bou Habib's statement.

For a whole year, since cross-border hostilities erupted between Iran-backed Hezbollah and the Israeli military, Hezbollah opened what it called a "support front" for the Palestinians, making it a top condition that it would stop firing rockets at Israel only once a ceasefire deal was reached in Gaza.

Hezbollah's insistence on tying Lebanon’s fate to that of Gaza prompted backlash in the country, already reeling under its worst-ever economic crisis for five years.

Even a close ally of Hezbollah and the group’s presidential candidate, Marada Movement leader Sleiman Frangieh, on Monday "hoped" for an end to the war and to stop tying a ceasefire in Lebanon to one in Gaza.

"Our priority today is to end the [Israeli] aggression in Lebanon and to come out of this crisis unified," Frangieh said, after meeting with Berri at the speaker’s Beirut residence.

The Lebanese health ministry said Monday that 2,083 people had been killed in Lebanon since fighting began with Israel in October last year, as well as over 9,800 injuries.

The toll includes both Hezbollah fighters and civilians. Most of these civilians, among them children, health workers, and rescuers, have been killed in the past two weeks when Israel began its violent escalation.