Lebanese parliament speaker and Hezbollah ally Nabih Berri said on Friday that the group would withdraw from the area south of Lebanon’s Litani River if these conditions were met.
Hezbollah had vehemently opposed the government’s direct engagement with Israel, with its leader Naim Qassem describing the talks as a “farce and humiliation” – a stance Aoun took issue with on Friday.
“Hezbollah must understand that (there is) no other way but to sit and talk, no other way to solve this problem and to save what’s left except through negotiation and diplomacy,” he told CNN.
‘How long will this go on?’
Israel has staged its deepest incursion in two decades into Lebanon, and on Friday it warned residents of nine towns and villages, including Sarafand on the coastal road between Tyre and Sidon, to immediately evacuate.
Lebanon’s official National News Agency reported mass displacement from some of the villages, and subsequently reported strikes there.
An overnight Israeli strike near the city of Tyre’s Jabal Amel hospital killed four people, wounded seven and lightly damaged the facility, while another in a residential area killed three and wounded five, including two children, according to a civil defence source.
An AFP correspondent saw a heavily damaged bank near the hospital, one of only three in the city.
“I was in my mother’s hospital room when a powerful strike hit near the hospital,” Marwan Ghorayeb told AFP, adding that his mother had also survived a Monday strike near the facility that killed four people and wounded 127, including 39 hospital personnel.
“My house in my hometown was destroyed, and my house in Tyre was destroyed. How long will this go on?”
Lebanon’s health ministry said Israeli attacks have killed at least 3,558 people since March 2.
Related
