Hezbollah said Tuesday it is now ready to engage in cease-fire talks with Israel, after suffering serious blows to its leadership and ranks in recent months.
The terror group in Lebanon made the announcement after firing more than 100 rockets at the Jewish state hours earlier.
Hezbollah’s deputy secretary general, Naim Qassem, publicly endorsed a truce with Israel, the first such time the terror group has proposed a cease-fire not conditioned on the war in Gaza.
“We support the political efforts led by [Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih] Berri under the banner of achieving a cease-fire,” Qassem said, according to a CNN translation.
“Once the cease-fire is firmly established and diplomacy can reach it, all other details will be discussed and decisions will be made collaboratively,” he added.
Qassem’s announcement came within hours of a massive barrage that sent more than 100 missiles soaring from Lebanon at Israel’s northern city of Haifa, the third-largest metropolis in the Jewish state.
Officials said one woman in her 70s was wounded by shrapnel from the attack, which came just a day after another missile barrage on the city that left two others injured.
Hezbollah had previously vowed that it would not stop attacking Israel until it agrees to end the war in Gaza, with the Iran-backed terror group firing missiles over the border nearly every day since Oct. 8.
Qassem’s willingness to accept a cease-fire comes as he is currently the highest-ranking member in the terror group after Israel decimated its ranks in recent months.
Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah was killed Sept. 27, with Israeli defense officials revealing Tuesday that his planned successor, Hashem Safieddine, was likely also killed in an airstrike last week before he could even be formally elected as a replacement.
Along with the two chiefs, the IDF’s airstrikes in southern Lebanon and Beirut have killed more than a dozen senior officials, including the top commanders of Hezbollah’s elite military and missile firing units.
The terror group also suffered a serious blow last month when its pagers and radio systems were detonated in a suspected Israeli attack, killing dozens of people and leaving thousands of operatives injured.
Israel’s ground raids in Lebanon, which are aimed at demolishing Hezbollah’s weapons depots and infrastructure, have also taken a toll on the terrorist group’s numbers.
The Israeli military said it has killed more than 200 Hezbollah operatives during last week’s raids, with multiple tunnels and rocket launching facilities destroyed along the border.
It remains unclear if Israel would accept a cease-fire deal with Hezbollah as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reiterated that the operations in Lebanon would not end until he is assured the terror group will no longer pose an active threat to northern Israel.
The US and France have repeatedly urged for the two sides to engage in a truce over fears the conflict would spark an all-out war in the Middle East.
