Before his assassination in an Israeli attack, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah signed a ceasefire with Israel, Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib said. His death happened when Israeli attacks hit Hezbollah strongholds in the Dahiyeh suburb on September 27. In an interview with CNN, Habib said that Nasrallah accepted a 21-day truce with Netanyahu based on a resolution made by Biden at the United Nations Assembly meeting, Macron and other leaders.
The ceasefire negotiations were after a series of pager blasts in mid-September, which Hezbollah accused Israel of perpetrating. While agreeing to the ceasefire, Nasrallah would have preferred an understanding with the Israeli premier Netanyahu who, in turn, vowed to carry on with against Hezbollah assaults.
Iranian sources also disclosed that the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had advised Nasrallah to abscond from Lebanon because Israel had penetrated Hezbollah. Before the fatal strike, Khamenei had sent Nasrallah an urgent message warning him to flee to Iran immediately.
Nasrallah’s assassination was after a two weeks Israeli operation that targeted Hezbollah by destroying its arms depots and exterminating its big names. After his death, Iranian authorities started to look whether there was group penetration within Hezbollah and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards particularly those traveling or having linkages abroad. Fears of Israeli spies within the organization have caused great attention to be paid to who is in the company of Hezbollah.
(With Reuters inputs)
