Hezbollah signals it will cease fire when Israel stops attacking Gaza

The Iran-backed Hezbollah signalled on Thursday that it would halt its attacks on Israel from Lebanon when the Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip stops, but that it was also ready to keep on fighting if Israel continued hostilities.

Hezbollah and the Israeli army have been trading fire since the Palestinian group Hamas stormed southern Israel from the Gaza Strip on October 7, in a steadily intensifying conflict that has fuelled concern of wider escalation.

“The war in the south is linked to the aggression on Gaza on the one hand, and to securing means of protection for our country on the other,” senior Hezbollah politician Hassan Fadlallah said.

“When the (Israeli) occupation halts its aggression on Gaza, this front stops, because it is a supportive front,” he said in comments made at an event to commemorate a Hezbollah field commander killed in an Israeli strike earlier this week.

Two sources familiar with Hezbollah’s thinking told Reuters on Tuesday that the group would halt fire on Israel if Hamas agrees to a proposal for a truce in Gaza – unless Israeli forces kept shelling Lebanon.