Lebanon’s Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib told CNN that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah had agreed to a 21-day ceasefire just days before he was assassinated by Israel.
The temporary ceasefire was called for by US President Joe Biden, his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron and other allies during last week’s UN General Assembly.
“He [Nasrallah] agreed, he agreed,” Habib told Christiane Amanpour in an interview aired on Wednesday.
White House senior adviser Amos Hochstein was then set to go to Lebanon to negotiate the ceasefire, Habib continued.
“They told us that Mr. Netanyahu agreed on this and so we also got the agreement of Hezbollah on that and you know what happened since then,” Habib continued.
Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Friday in the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital Beirut.
A day earlier, a joint statement 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.”
In response to a question on the United States’ diminishing influence in the region, Habib said Washington was “always important in this regard.”
“I don’t think we have an alternative. We need the United States’ help. Whether we get it or not, we’re not sure yet, but [the] United States is very important, vital for the ceasefire to happen,” said Habib.