Biden, Macron set to announce Israel-Hezbollah truce, say Lebanese sources
U.S. President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron are expected to announce a ceasefire in Lebanon between the armed group Hezbollah and Israel imminently, four senior Lebanese sources said on Monday.
In Washington, White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said, “We’re close” but “nothing is done until everything is done.”
The French presidency said discussions on a ceasefire had made significant progress. In Jerusalem, a senior Israeli official said Israel’s cabinet would meet on Tuesday to approve a truce deal with Hezbollah.
Signs of a diplomatic breakthrough were accompanied by heavy Israeli airstrikes on Beirut’s Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs, as Israel pressed on with the offensive it launched in September after almost a year of cross-border hostilities.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office declined to comment on reports that both Israel and Lebanon had agreed to the text of a deal. But the senior Israeli official told Reuters that Tuesday’s cabinet meeting was intended to approve the text.
Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, said Israel would maintain an ability to strike southern Lebanon under any agreement. Lebanon has previously objected to wording that would grant Israel such a right.
U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said gaps between the two parties have narrowed significantly but there are still steps they need to take to reach an agreement.
“Oftentimes the very last stages of an agreement are the most difficult because the hardest issues are left to the end,” he said. “We are pushing as hard as we can.”
Diplomacy is aimed at getting Iran-backed Hezbollah and Israel to end the fighting that erupted in October 2023 in parallel with Israel’s war against Palestinian Islamist group Hamas in Gaza. The conflict in Lebanon has drastically escalated over the last two months.
‘No serious obstacles’ left
In Beirut, Elias Bou Saab, Lebanon’s deputy parliament speaker, told Reuters there were “no serious obstacles” left to start implementing a U.S.-proposed ceasefire with Israel, “unless Netanyahu changes his mind.”
He said the proposal would entail an Israeli military withdrawal from south Lebanon and regular Lebanese army troops deploying in the border region, long a Hezbollah stronghold, within 60 days.
A sticking point on who would monitor compliance with the ceasefire had been resolved in the last 24 hours with an agreement to set up a five-country committee, including France and chaired by the United States, he said.
Israeli strikes continue
Despite diplomatic progress, hostilities have intensified. Over the weekend, Israel carried out powerful airstrikes, one of which killed at least 29 people in central Beirut, while Hezbollah unleashed one of its biggest rocket salvoes yet on Sunday, firing 250 missiles into Israel.
In Beirut, Israeli airstrikes levelled more of the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs on Monday, sending clouds of debris billowing over the Lebanese capital.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry said Israeli attacks killed 31 people and wounded 62 across the country on Monday. Over the past year, more than 3,750 people have been killed and over one million have been forced from their homes, according to the ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its figures.
Israel has dealt major blows to Hezbollah, killing its leader Hassan Nasrallah and other top commanders, and inflicting massive destruction in areas of Lebanon where the group holds sway.
Israel says its military offensive is aimed at enabling tens of thousands of Israelis to return to homes they evacuated when Hezbollah began firing across the Lebanese border into Israel more than a year ago. Hezbollah’s campaign followed the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel that precipitated the war in Gaza.
Hezbollah strikes have killed 45 civilians in northern Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. At least 73 Israeli soldiers have been killed in northern Israel and the Golan Heights, and in combat in southern Lebanon, according to Israeli authorities.
Biden’s administration, which leaves office in January, has emphasized diplomacy to end the Lebanon conflict, even as all negotiations to halt the parallel war in Gaza are frozen.
U.S. Middle East envoy Brett McGurk will be in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday to discuss using a potential Lebanon ceasefire as a catalyst for a deal ending hostilities in Gaza, the White House said.
Diplomacy over Lebanon has focused on restoring a ceasefire based on UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the last major war between Hezbollah and Israel in 2006.
An Israeli airstrike on Thursday killed at least 12 people, including eight rescuers, and wounded 27 others after it hit a civil defence centre in Baalbek, northeast of Beirut, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry.
It requires Hezbollah to pull its fighters back around 30 kilometres from the Israeli border, behind the Litani River, and the regular Lebanese army to enter the frontier region.
Israel and Hezbollah have both accused each other of failing to implement it in the past; Israel says a new ceasefire must allow it the means to strike any Hezbollah fighters or weapons that remain south of the river.
An agreement could reveal rifts in Netanyahu’s right-leaning government. The far-right National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, said Israel must press on with the war until “absolute victory.” Addressing Netanyahu on X, he said “it is not too late to stop this agreement!”
Published at Mon, 25 Nov 2024 18:43:08 +0000
Judge dismisses election interference case against Donald Tump at prosecutors’ request
Special counsel Jack Smith moved to abandon two criminal cases against U.S. president-elect Donald Trump on Monday, acknowledging that Trump’s return to the White House will preclude attempts to federally prosecute him for retaining classified documents or trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat.
The decision was inevitable, since longstanding U.S. Justice Department policy says sitting presidents cannot face criminal prosecution. Yet it was still a momentous finale to an unprecedented chapter in political and law enforcement history, as federal officials attempted to hold accountable a former president while he was simultaneously running for another term.
Trump emerges indisputably victorious, having successfully delayed the investigations through legal manoeuvres and then winning re-election despite indictments that described his actions as a threat to the country’s constitutional foundations.
“I persevered, against all odds, and WON,” Trump exulted in a post on Truth Social, his social media website.
He also said that “these cases, like all of the other cases I have been forced to go through, are empty and lawless, and should never have been brought.”
The judge in the election case granted prosecutors’ dismissal request. A decision in the documents case was still pending on Monday afternoon.
Constitution requires dismissal, prosecutors say
The outcome makes it clear that, when it comes to a president and criminal accusations, nothing supersedes the voters’ own verdict. In court filings, Smith’s team emphasized that the move to end their prosecutions was not a reflection of the merit of the cases but a recognition of the legal shield that surrounds any commander in chief.
“That prohibition is categorical and does not turn on the gravity of the crimes charged, the strength of the Government’s proof, or the merits of the prosecution, which the Government stands fully behind,” prosecutors said in one of their filings.
They wrote that Trump’s return to the White House “sets at odds two fundamental and compelling national interests: on the one hand, the Constitution’s requirement that the President must not be unduly encumbered in fulfilling his weighty responsibilities… and on the other hand, the Nation’s commitment to the rule of law.”
In this situation, “the Constitution requires that this case be dismissed before the defendant is inaugurated,” they concluded.
Smith’s team said it was leaving intact charges against two co-defendants in the classified documents case — Trump valet Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira — because “no principle of temporary immunity applies to them.”
‘Political weaponization’
Steven Cheung, Trump’s incoming White House communications director, said Americans “want an immediate end to the political weaponization of our justice system and we look forward to uniting our country.”
Trump has long described the investigations as politically motivated, and had vowed to fire Smith as soon as he takes office in January. Now he will start his second term free from criminal scrutiny by the government that he will lead.
The 2020 election case brought last year was once seen as one of the most serious legal threats facing Trump as he tried to reclaim the White House. He was indicted for plotting to overturn his defeat to Joe Biden in 2020, an effort that climaxed with his supporters’ violent attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
But it quickly stalled amid legal battles over Trump’s sweeping claims of immunity from prosecution for his actions while he was in the White House.
The U.S. Supreme Court in July ruled for the first time that former presidents have broad immunity from prosecution, and sent the case back to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan to determine which allegations in the indictment, if any, could proceed to trial.
The case was just beginning to pick up steam again in the trial court in the weeks leading up to this year’s election. Smith’s team in October filed a lengthy brief laying out new evidence they planned to use against Trump at trial, accusing him of “resorting to crimes” in an increasingly desperate effort to overturn the will of voters after he lost to Biden.
In dismissing the case, Chutkan acknowledged prosecutors’ request to do so “without prejudice,” raising the possibility that they could try to bring charges against Trump when his term is over. She wrote that is “consistent with the Government’s understanding that the immunity afforded to a sitting President is temporary, expiring when they leave office.”
But such a move may be barred by the statute of limitations, and Trump may also try to pardon himself while in office. The immunity afforded to a sitting president is temporary, expiring when they leave office.
Published at Mon, 25 Nov 2024 20:48:48 +0000
