Hezbollah chief Nasrallah had agreed to ceasefire shortly before Israel assassinated him: Lebanon minister

Hassan Nasrallah had “fully consented” to a 21-day ceasefire shortly before he was assassinated by Israel, Lebanon’s Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib revealed nearly a week after the Hezbollah chief’s death.

The temporary ceasefire was proposed by US President Joe Biden and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron and other allies during the United Nations General Assembly last week.

Nasrallah ‘agreed’ to ceasefire

“He (Nasrallah) agreed, he agreed,” Habib said in an interview to CNN.  

The Lebanese foreign minister went on to say: “We agreed completely. Lebanon agreed to a ceasefire but consulting with Hezbollah. The (Lebanese House) Speaker Mr. Nabih Berri consulted with Hezbollah and we informed the Americans and the French what happened. And they told us that Mr. Netanyahu also agreed on the statement that was issued by both presidents (Biden and Macron)."  

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As per Habib, White House senior adviser Amos Hochstein was also set to travel to Lebanon to negotiate the ceasefire.  

“They told us that Mr. Netanyahu agreed on this and so we also got the agreement of Hezbollah on that,” the minister said.

The situation, however, changed after Nasrallah was killed on September 27 in an Israeli airstrike in southern Beirut. His funeral will be held on Friday (October 4).

A day before Nasrallah’s assassination, a joint statement was issued by the United States, France, Australia, Canada, the European Union, Germany, Italy, Japan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and Qatar called for a 21-day ceasefire, “to give diplomacy a chance to succeed and avoid further escalations across the border.”

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Iran's Khamenei advised Nasrallah to flee Lebanon, warned of Israeli plot to kill him: Report

Nasrallah ‘suffocated’ to death

According to Israeli news outlet Channel 12, Nasrallah may have suffocated from poisonous gases inside his secret bunker following which it was demolished by 80 tons of “bunker-busting” bombs.

When the 64-year-old Hezbollah chief’s body was discovered by officials, there were no visible wounds, indicating that he may have been buried under rubble while gas from explosions filled the space around him.

According to a report by Reuters, medical and security personnel, who recovered Nasrallah’s body, said that he was most likely killed by blunt trauma due to the explosions that occurred when he was preparing for a meeting with Hezbollah leadership.

Khamenei warned Nasrallah

According to a report by Reuters, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had warned Nasrallah that Israel was planning to kill him.

Khamenei had also asked the Hezbollah leader to flee Lebanon days before he was killed in an Israeli strike.

Quoting three Iranian sources, Reuters report said that immediate after the attack on Hezbollah’s booby-trapped pagers on September 17, Khamenei sent a message with an envoy to beseech the Hezbollah secretary general to leave for Iran, citing intelligence reports that suggested Israel had operatives within Hezbollah and was planning to kill him.

Also Read: Iran's Khamenei advised Nasrallah to flee Lebanon, warned of Israeli plot to kill him: Report

In the immediate aftermath of the attack on Hezbollah’s booby-trapped pagers on September 17, Khamenei sent a message with an envoy to beseech the Hezbollah secretary general to leave for Iran, citing intelligence reports that suggested Israel had operatives within Hezbollah and was planning to kill him, one of the sources, a senior Iranian official, told Reuters.

One of the senior Iranian officials said that the messenger was a senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander, Brigadier General Abbas Nilforoushan, who was with Nasrallah in bunker when it was hit by Israeli bombs.