WASHINGTON: The Israeli defence ministry has announced it had secured a new $8.7 billion aid package from the United States to support the country’s ongoing military efforts, underlining Washington’s unwillingness to use its military aid as leverage for a ceasefire in Lebanon.
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Israel’s strategic affairs minister in New York on Thursday, telling him the ceasefire would “allow civilians on both sides of the border to return to their homes”.
“Further escalation of the conflict will only make that objective more difficult,” his spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement.|
Meanwhile, Israel has rejected a push by allies for a 21-day ceasefire in Lebanon and vowed to keep fighting Hezbollah “until victory”, ahead of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s expected address to the UN General Assembly.
The United States, France and other allies unveiled the 21-day truce on Wednesday. But Israeli leader Netanyahu flatly rejected the ceasefire proposal on Thursday, ordering the military to continue “fighting with full force”.
The White House expressed frustration at the rejection, saying the truce proposal had taken “a lot of care and effort”.
“We wouldn’t have made that statement, we wouldn’t have worked on that if we didn’t have reason to believe that the conversations that we were having with the Israelis in particular, were supportive of the goal there,” National Security spokesman John Kirby said in a statement on Thursday.
