BEIRUT
\nLebanon\u2019s parliament speaker, who is the most senior Shiite politician and a close ally of Hezbollah, said on Monday there could be no negotiations with Israel without a halt to the war that has raged on in southern Lebanon in spite of a ceasefire.
\nNabih Berri\u2019s comments, made as Israeli forces ordered residents out of four more villages in southern Lebanon, underline challenges facing US efforts to forge peace between the states which held rare, face-to-face talks last month.
\nIsrael invaded Lebanon in March to root out Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Shiite armed group, which fired across \u200cthe border in support \u200cof Tehran after the United States and Israel attacked Iran. \u200cTehran says any deal to end the wider war must also halt fighting in Lebanon, though Washington says the issues are separate.
\nIsrael and Lebanon agreed a ceasefire in mid-April which has since been extended into May. But while fighting has been diminished, it has not halted, with Israel maintaining an occupation of southern Lebanon and demolishing villages there, while Hezbollah has continued attacks on Israeli forces.
\nBerri told Lebanon\u2019s An-Nahar newspaper the priority must be \u201cstopping the war before any political track,\u201d and that he rejected any negotiations without guarantees \u200cIsrael would halt attacks, according to a summary \u200cof his comments released by his office.
\nThe Israeli military on Monday issued a warning to residents of \u200cfour villages beyond its self-proclaimed security zone to leave their homes immediately, accusing \u200cHezbollah of breaching the ceasefire and saying it intended to act against it.Hezbollah said it carried out 11 operations against Israeli forces in southern Lebanon on Sunday.
\nLebanon\u2019s government wants a permanent deal with Israel that would end a repeated cycle of Israeli invasions and strikes, while stopping short \u200cof saying it wants a peace agreement. Israel says any deal must permanently disarm Hezbollah.
\nUS President Donald Trump, who hosted delegations from the two countries for last month\u2019s ceasefire talks, said there was \u201ca great chance\u201d they would reach a peace agreement this year and that he wants to host a meeting soon between Israel\u2019s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Lebanon\u2019s President Joseph Aoun.
\nHezbollah and Berri have objected to the face-to-face meetings. Aoun has said he backs ambassador-level talks with Israel with the aim of establishing a ceasefire, followed by expanded talks on Lebanon\u2019s other demands, including a full Israeli withdrawal, the return of displaced people and the release of captives held by Israel.
\nLebanon\u2019s health ministry says more than 2,600 people have been killed in the war since March 2. Israel says 17 of its soldiers have been killed in southern Lebanon while two civilians have been killed by Hezbollah attacks.ade detection, according to the IOM.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BEIRUT Lebanon\u2019s parliament speaker, who is the most senior Shiite politician and a close ally of Hezbollah, said on Monday there could be no negotiations with Israel without a halt to the war that has raged on in southern Lebanon in spite of a ceasefire. Nabih Berri\u2019s comments, made as Israeli forces ordered residents out …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":97286,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-97271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97271"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97271\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97288,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97271\/revisions\/97288"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}