Top Iranian official vows support for Lebanon on Israel-Hezbollah war as U.S. pushes for cease-fire
BEIRUT — A top Iranian official pledged his country’s unwavering support for Lebanon after talks Friday with Lebanese leaders on the war between Israel and Hezbollah, as the United States continued pushing both sides to agree to a new cease-fire deal.
Ali Larijani, an advisor to Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, said he hoped circumstances would soon improve in Lebanon so that displaced people could return home.
“The main aim of our visit is to loudly say that we will stand by Lebanon’s government and people,” Larijani told reporters after separate meetings with parliamentary Speaker Nabih Berri and caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati.
Both Hezbollah and Hamas are backed by Iran, and Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel the day after Hamas’ surprise attack into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, ignited the war in Gaza.
The U.S. has been trying to broker an end to the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, which intensified in September with Israel expanding its attacks into southern and eastern Lebanon as well as Beirut’s southern suburbs.
According to reports in Lebanese media, U.S. Ambassador Lisa Johnson has handed over a draft of a proposed deal to end the Israel-Hezbollah war to Berri, who has been leading the talks representing the militant and political group.
As Israeli airstrikes flatten swaths of Lebanon, groups warn the attacks mirror some of the patterns of destruction and displacement seen in Gaza.
A Lebanese official confirmed Friday that Johnson visited Berri, but refused to say whether a draft was handed over.
Another Lebanese official confirmed that Beirut received a copy of a draft proposal that the U.S. sees as suitable to end the war based on United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended another Israel-Hezbollah war, in the summer of 2006.
The official did not give details other than to say Israel was insisting that some guarantees be included.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity, because they weren’t authorized to speak to the media about the talks.
The U.S. Embassy refused to confirm or deny the reports.
Larijani flew in Friday from neighboring Syria where he held similar talks a day earlier with President Bashar Assad. Syria’s state news agency said Assad and Larijani discussed the “ongoing aggression on Palestine and Lebanon and the necessity of stopping it.”
As Israel expands its strikes far from Hezbollah’s bastions into areas where displaced Shiites have fled, fears rise about worsening sectarian tensions.
Asked if he was visiting to try to thwart U.S. efforts to end the Israel-Hezbollah war, Larijani said, “We are not trying to blow up any effort, but we want to solve the problem and we will stand by Lebanon, whatever the circumstances.”
Iran has funded and armed the Lebanese militant group for decades.
Mikati, the caretaker prime minister, has in recent weeks become more critical of Iran’s role in Lebanon. He said the government wants Iran to help Lebanon’s national unity and not take any stance backing one party against another. Iran’s support of Hezbollah has helped the group, which is the most powerful faction among Lebanon’s Shiite Muslims, dominate the country’s politics the last decade.
He told Larijani that Lebanon wants the war to end and aims to reach a cease-fire, according to comments released by his office. He said Lebanon wants implementation of the U.N. resolution that ended the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war “in all its details.” That resolution says that there should be no armed presence in southern Lebanon along the border with Israel other than the Lebanese army and U.N. peacekeepers.
Larijani’s visit to the Lebanese capital was punctuated with a renewed aerial attack by Israel on the southeastern edge of the city.
An image captured by an Associated Press photographer showed a bomb about to hit an 11-story residential building in the Tayouneh area, a few miles from central Beirut. The building then burst into flames.
There were no immediate reports of casualties, but the bomb hit low in the building, turning much of it to rubble. The Israeli military had issued a warning before the attack, saying it was a facility that belonged to Hezbollah.
In the Gaza Strip on Friday, funerals were held for 11 people killed the day before in a series of Israeli airstrikes in and around the central Gaza Strip city of Deir al-Balah.
The wounded and dead were all taken to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, witnessed by an AP reporter. Two children were among the dead.
The health ministry in Hamas-controlled Gaza said Friday that a total of 28 people had been killed and 120 others wounded in the past 24 hours.
On Thursday, the U.N. Security Council’s 10 elected, nonpermanent members circulated a draft resolution demanding “an immediate, unconditional and permanent cease-fire” in Gaza.
The draft resolution, which was sent to the council’s five permanent members, reiterates the council’s demand “for the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages” seized during the Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel that killed about 1,200 people. Israel says some 100 hostages of the about 250 taken are still being held, though not all are believed to be alive.
The U.S., Israel’s closest ally, holds the key to whether the U.N. Security Council adopts the resolution. The four other permanent members — Russia, China, Britain and France — are expected to support it or abstain.
The draft, obtained Thursday by the AP, also demands immediate access for Gaza’s civilian population to humanitarian aid and services essential for their survival.
The draft resolution would also express the council’s “deep alarm over the ongoing catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza including the lack of adequate healthcare services and the state of food insecurity creating a risk of famine notably in the north.”
It would condemn all attacks against civilians and “civilian objects” and all acts of terrorism.
Israel’s attacks in Gaza have killed more than 43,000 people, Palestinian health officials say. The officials don’t distinguish between civilians and combatants, but say more than half of those killed have been women and children.
Hezbollah began firing rockets, drones and missiles into Israel on Oct. 8, 2023, in solidarity with Hamas, driving tens of thousands out of northern Israel. The Israeli military retaliated, and a series of escalations have led to all-out war.
Since then, more than 3,200 people have been killed in Lebanon, according to the country’s Health Ministry. Lebanon has also suffered about $8.5 billion in physical damage and economic loss, according to a World Bank report released Thursday.
In the town of Douris in eastern Lebanon, rescue teams continued searching through the rubble Friday at the site of an Israeli strike that hit a civil defense center the night before.
Lebanese Civil Defense said in a statement that 13 bodies had been recovered, all of them employees and volunteers of the emergency services agency, as well as some other remains that will require DNA testing.
In a statement, the General Directorate of Civil Defense expressed “deep regret over this direct attack on its members” and said that it “will continue to respond to relief calls and continue with its humanitarian mission, no matter how great the challenges and sacrifices are.”
Associated Press writers Mroue reported from Beirut and Rising from Bangkok. AP writers Abby Sewell in Beirut and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations and Times staff contributed to this report.
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