Lebanon’s pro-Hezbollah al-Akhbar newspaper reported that some Lebanese Army officials received “serious signals” from the co-chair of the truce monitoring committee, U.S. General Jasper Jeffers, that “Israel intends to extend the 60-day deadline to 90 days, which might also be extended to April.”
“The matter hinges on Israel’s realization of its goals which calls for guaranteeing the elimination of Hezbollah’s ability to launch any attacks,” the daily quoted Jeffers as telling the officials.
The 60-day period stipulated in the ceasefire agreement will not be honored Israel’s state-run Public Broadcasting Corporation has reported.
“Israel will inform Washington that it will not pull out because the Lebanese Army is not abiding by the agreement and Hezbollah is reorganizing its ranks,” the report said.
“Israel is also expected to tell the United States that it will not allow the residents of the Lebanese towns near the border to return to their homes,” the report added.
Hezbollah comments
Hezbollah Secretary-General Sheikh Naim Qassem stressed that resistance sets its rules, so there is no timetable that determines the resistance’s performance, neither by agreement nor after the end of the 60-day period in the agreement. We said that we are giving a chance to prevent Israeli violations and implement the agreement and that we will be patient. This does not mean that we will be patient for 60 days, nor does it mean that we will be patient for less or more than 60 days. Our patience is linked to our decision about the appropriate time to confront the Israeli aggression and violations. Our patience may run out before 60 days, or it may continue. This is something that the leadership decides. The leadership of the resistance is the one that decides when to be patient, when to take the initiative, and when to respond.
But MP Bilal Al-Houshaymi blasted the Hezbollah militant group stressing that “Lebanon and the Lebanese people in general, and the Shiite sect in particular, cannot bear the outbreak of a new war with Israel,” calling on “Hezbollah” to “stop being stubborn, obstinate and arrogant and to stop raising its finger in threats and intimidation,” calling on it to “convey its demands and observations through the parliament and the government, in which it is well represented.”
In a radio interview, he said that “the Shiites in Lebanon were left alone in the last war on Lebanon, neither Iran supported them nor did Bashar al-Assad’s regime stand by them. Hence, the Shiite sect is not at all prepared for a new military adventure by Hezbollah if it carries out its threats after the expiration of the sixty-day deadline, stressing at the same time that “there is absolutely no return to the slogan of army, people and resistance.”
Hezbollah, which is the only militia that refused to hand over its arms after the civil war ended in 1990 has been insisting on including this slogan or formula in every Government statement policy for the last 20 years, but this time around many MPs are insisting that this formula should be trashed, because it undermines Lebanon’s sovereignty, especially since Hezbollah has been using its arms internally and acting as a state within a state.
Lebanon’s Shiite community suffered the most from the war between Hezbollah and Israel, which the Iranian-backed group initiated on October 8, 2023, to support Hamas in Gaza, another Iranian-backed proxy. Over one Million Shiites have been displaced and tens of thousands of their homes have been destroyed