(24 Nov 2024)
RESTRICTIONS SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Beirut, Lebanon – 24 November 2024
1. Various of exterior of Geitaoui Hospital
2. Various of trauma emergency surgical kits donated by the EU and WHO
3. Various of Borrell entering Geitaoui Hospital and welcomed by hospital’s administration staff
4. Various of Borrell visiting burns centre at Geitaoui hospital
5. Various of Borrell and patient at burns centre
6. Various of Borrell and hospital administration staff looking at donated kits
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Josep Borrell, EU Foreign Policy Chief:
“In these last days, it seems that the ceasefire is coming but it is not coming. Someone is not interested in it. And everybody should understand that a ceasefire is absolutely needed.”
8. Cutaway delegation joining Borrell
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Josep Borrell, EU Foreign Policy Chief:
“I don’t know which is the obstacle, but I don’t think ( there is) anything could justify a single day more of war. I don’t see any reason that could justify a single day more of pain. And I hope that the people who are not willing peace , the people who continue pushing for war, have to be accountable for what they are doing.”
10. Wide of Borrell with hospital administration staff and delegation
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Josep Borrell, EU Foreign Policy Chief:
“I don’t see the Israeli government interested clearly in reaching an agreement for a ceasefire.”
12. Cutaway EU flag
13. SOUNDBITE (English) Josep Borrell, EU Foreign Policy Chief:
"Now, once again, we are hearing that a ceasefire is imminent, and as I said , I heard it many times. I heard it in Lebanon, I heard it in Gaza – and it seems that, once again, Israel is putting new conditions for this ceasefire one has to ask for."
++ENDS ON A SOUNDBITE++
STORYLINE:
The European Union’s top diplomat Josep Borrell said Sunday during a visit to Lebanon that he is not convinced that Israel is interested in a ceasefire with the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah or that it is ready to withdraw its troops from southern Lebanon.
"I don’t see the Israeli government interested clearly in reaching an agreement for a ceasefire," he said.
Borrell, the EU foreign policy chief whose mandate ends this month, has a contentious relationship with the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and has been vocally critical of Israel’s conduct in its war against Hamas in Gaza.
Diplomats from the United States, France and other countries have been scrambling to broker an end to the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, which began on Oct. 8, 2023 but has dramatically escalated in the past two months.
Until recently, Hezbollah had insisted that a ceasefire in Lebanon was contingent on an end to the war in Gaza – which never came. Borrell said that in September, then-Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah had agreed to a "separate ceasefire for Lebanon," decoupling the two fronts.
A few days later, the Israeli military killed Nasrallah in a series of massive airstrikes in Beirut’s southern suburbs.
"Now, once again, we are hearing that a ceasefire is imminent," Borrell said. "I heard it many times. I heard it in Lebanon, I heard it in Gaza – and it seems that, once again, Israel is putting new conditions for this ceasefire."
Asked what those conditions were, he pointed to Israel’s refusal to accept France as a member of the international committee that would oversee implementation of the ceasefire and of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, which was passed in 2006 to end a month-long was between Israel and Hezbollah but never fully implemented.
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