POLITICO
Israel should “stop killing people” and accept the terms of a cease-fire with Lebanon brokered by the United States and France, the European Union’s foreign policy chief said.
The Israeli government will vote on a proposed peace deal Tuesday, a spokesperson for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, according to media reports. U.S. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said Monday that Israel is “close” to an agreement with Lebanese militant group and political party Hezbollah but “not there yet.”
Speaking on the sidelines of a G7 meeting of foreign ministers near Rome, the EU’s top diplomat Josep Borrell said that the proposed France and U.S.-brokered agreement “gives Israel all the security commitments they were asking for” and urged Israeli leadership to accept it without delay.
“Let’s hope that today, Netanyahu’s government will approve the cease-fire agreement,” Borrell said. “No more excuses. No more additional requests. Stop this fighting. Stop killing people.”
Hezbollah and Israel have exchanged rocket fire almost daily since Palestinian militant group Hamas’ attack against southern Israel on Oct. 7. last year.
Those tensions escalated into all-out war in September, when Israel launched a ground invasion of southern Lebanon with the stated goal of crippling the Iran-backed group’s infrastructure along the border and allowing Israeli residents displaced by missile strikes to return to their homes.
The proposed cease-fire will not end Israel’s separate invasion of Gaza, where the Israeli military has continued its efforts to root out Hamas, leaving the coastal enclave in ruins and killing more than 40,000 people.
