The waves of rockets are a dramatic escalation in the simmering border crisis even as negotiations over a Gaza cease-fire reach a delicate moment.
By Victoria Bisset, Mohamad El Chamaa, Susannah George, Bryan Pietsch and John Hudson, The Washington PostAn Israeli flag flutters next to a fire burning in an area near the border with Lebanon, northern Israel in Safed, Wednesday, June 12, 2024. Scores of rockets were fired from Lebanon toward northern Israel on Wednesday morning, hours after Israeli airstrikes killed four officials from the militant Hezbollah group including a senior military commander.
The escalation comes at a fraught time for Israel as it faces mounting global pressure to wind down its war in the Gaza Strip, with negotiations for a cease-fire appearing to reach a fork in the road. Hamas submitted a response Tuesday to a U.S.-backed cease-fire proposal; the response asked for reassurances about an end to the war, according to an official with knowledge of the talks. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing diplomatic effort.
“Hamas could have answered with a single word: Yes. Instead, Hamas waited nearly two weeks and then proposed more changes, a number of which go beyond positions that it had previously taken and accepted,” Blinken said. He questioned whether Hamas was “proceeding in good faith or not.” Mediators are hoping to delay conversations about more complicated questions of how to end the war in Gaza by getting the two sides to at least agree to the first phase of the deal, which would include a six-week cease-fire and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from heavily populated areas of Gaza; the freeing of all women, elderly people and children held hostage in return for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails; the return of displaced Palestinians to their homes throughout Gaza; and a...
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