Caretaker Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib has said that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah had agreed to a 21-day ceasefire just days before he was assassinated by Israel.
The temporary ceasefire was called for by US President Joe Biden, his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron and other allies during last week’s UN General Assembly.
“He [Nasrallah] agreed, he agreed,” Habib told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in an interview aired on Wednesday.
“We agreed completely. Lebanon agreed to a ceasefire but consulting with Hezbollah. The (Lebanese Parliament) Speaker Mr. Nabih Berri consulted with Hezbollah and we informed the Americans and the French what happened. And they told us that Mr. (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu also agreed on the statement that was issued by both presidents (Biden and Macron.)”
White House senior adviser Amos Hochstein was then set to go to Lebanon to negotiate the ceasefire, Habib continued.
“They told us that Mr. Netanyahu agreed on this and so we also got the agreement of Hezbollah on that and you know what happened since then,” Habib continued.
Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Friday in the southern suburbs of Beirut.
