OAN Staff Brooke Mallory
5:49 PM – Tuesday, November 26, 2024
Following Israel and Hezbollah’s agreement to halt fighting in and around the Lebanese border, President Joe Biden, who will be out of the White House on January 20th, announced on Tuesday that the U.S. will launch a new effort to secure a truce in Gaza in the days ahead.
According to Biden, the deal to stop violence along the Israeli-Lebanon border would begin at 4 a.m. local time on Wednesday. Biden also added that the U.S. will keep pushing for a similar agreement to end conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza after both parties maintained that they had reached a truce.
“Over the coming days, the United States will make another push with Turkey, Egypt, Qatar, Israel, and others to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza so the hostages be released and the end of the war without Hamas in power, that becomes possible,” Biden said in his remarks at the White House.
He went on to say he is “praying” for Israel and Hamas to reach an agreement. Before President-elect Trump is sworn in, Biden has two months left in the White House.
“Just as the Lebanese people deserve a future of security and prosperity, so do the people of Gaza. They too deserve an end to the fighting and displacement. The people of Gaza have been through hell, their world’s absolutely shattered,” Biden continued. “Far too many civilians in Gaza have suffered far too much and Hamas has refused, for months and months, to negotiate a good-faith ceasefire and a hostage deal.”
The president claimed that the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, who have been at war for almost two months, “brings us closer” to the “two-state solution” between Israel and Palestine and cross-border peace that he has been advocating for in the Middle East.
Israel has carried out a number of attacks within Lebanon, especially in and around Beirut, the country’s heavily populated capital. In the process, Israel successfully took down Hezbollah’s infrastructure, leadership, ranks, and secret bunkers along the border, according to Netanyahu.
The agreement calls for a 60-day truce, during which Hezbollah will evacuate its troops from Lebanon north of the Litani River and Israel will progressively remove its forces from southern Lebanon.
The Lebanese army and state security forces will move into the border zone during that time, and a new enforcement system that is supervised by the U.S., France, and other countries will be put in place to make sure Hezbollah is unable to reconstruct its infrastructure.
Speaking on the anticipated deal earlier on Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that Israel has forced the Iranian-backed, U.S.-designated terrorist organization Hezbollah “back decades.”
According to him, maintaining peace along the northern border is necessary to isolate Hamas in the Gaza Strip, give forces a chance to relax and resupply, and draw attention to Iran.
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