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An Israeli air strike in Lebanon killed 10 people on Saturday, according to local authorities, just hours after the latest round of talks to prevent the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza spiralling into a regional war wrapped up.
Israel’s military said the strike targeted a weapons storage facility near Nabatieh belonging to Hizbollah. The Iran-backed militant group and Israel have been exchanging fire since the start of the war in Gaza.
Lebanon’s state news agency said the strike had hit a factory, killing 10 Syrian nationals and injuring a further five people. The death toll is one of the highest from a single strike in the country since hostilities began 10 months ago.
In response, Hizbollah said it had launched a salvo of rockets at Ayelet HaShahar in northern Israel. The Israeli military said about 55 projectiles had been fired from Lebanon, igniting multiples fires in the area, but that there were no immediate reports of injuries.
In two separate incidents on Saturdays, Israel’s military said it had killed a Hizbollah commander in southern Lebanon in an air strike, while two Israeli soldiers were injured in a rocket attack from Lebanon.
The exchanges of fire came as US secretary of state Antony Blinken was due to land in Israel on Saturday to try to advance a deal to end the 10-month-old war between Israel and Hamas and secure the release of the roughly 115 hostages still held by the militant group in Gaza.
The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday evening that Israeli negotiators had expressed “cautious optimism regarding the possibility of progress on the deal, in accordance with the updated American proposal”.
The ceasefire talks are seen by US and Arab officials as the best hope of preventing the war between Israel and Hamas, which was triggered by Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, from escalating into a regional conflagration.
Fears of a broader war have intensified since back-to-back assassinations of senior Hizbollah and Hamas figures last month in Beirut and Tehran. Hizbollah and Iran have pledged to retaliate against Israel.
On Friday, after two days of talks in Doha, the US, Qatar and Egypt put forward a proposal aiming to bridge the gaps between Israel and Hamas, which remain at odds on the terms of a ceasefire deal, despite multiple rounds of negotiations.
A further meeting is due to be held in Cairo before the end of next week “with the aim to conclude the deal under the terms put forward today”, the US, Qatar and Egypt, who have been mediating the talks, said in a joint statement.
“There is no further time to waste, nor excuses from any party for further delay,” they added. “It is time to release the hostages and detainees, begin the ceasefire and implement this agreement.”
The mediators said they had presented Israel and Hamas with a “bridging proposal that is consistent with the principles laid out” in a three-stage plan to end the fighting set out by US President Joe Biden in May.
The first stage of that plan envisaged a six-week truce, during which Hamas would free a first group of hostages in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.
A second phase would involve the release of all hostages and what mediators hope would be an extended ceasefire, while the third phase would initiate the reconstruction of Gaza.
Biden said on Friday that the talks in Doha had made good progress and that while the sides were “not there yet”, an agreement could be “close”.
Mediators have also expressed optimism about previous rounds of negotiations, but the talks have repeatedly foundered on disagreements between Israel and Hamas on crucial aspects of any deal.
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