After a full year of fighting, shelling the north and killing IDF soldiers and Israeli civilians, Hezbollah has suddenly decided that it no longer demands a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip as a condition for a ceasefire in the north, and as Nasrallah's deputy Naim Qassem said on Tuesday, Hezbollah wants a ceasefire – now.
According to Reuters, Hezbollah is reneging on its promise to continue fighting Israel as long as the war in the Gaza Strip continues, but Naim Qassem, deputy to the late Hezbollah leader Nasrallah broke this connection between Gaza and Lebanon in his speech yesterday, declaring that Hezbollah supports the efforts of the speaker of the Lebanese parliament, an ally of Hezbollah, to achieve a ceasefire without preconditions.
Two days before Qassem, two lower-level Hezbollah officials also spoke of a ceasefire in Lebanon – without contacting the fighting in Gaza or making it a condition.
Hamas, on the other hand, still wants to believe that Hezbollah is on their side. Sami Abu Zuhri, a senior member of the Gaza terror group still alive, told Reuters that Hamas was convinced Hezbollah would continue to tie up any agreement in the north to demand an end to the war in Gaza.