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Ottawa is pushing for Lebanon to be part of the ceasefire deal between the Trump administration and Iran and for its inclusion to be honoured by Israel, a senior Liberal source told CBC News.
Canada is one of “many countries trying to push for Lebanon,” said the source, who spoke to CBC News confidentially as they were not allowed to publicly discuss diplomatic conversations.
“It will all depend on whether [U.S. President] Trump will give a pass [to Israel].”
It is unclear whether the shaky ceasefire with Iran includes Lebanon, where the Iranian-backed militia Hezbollah has been warring with Israel since it and the U.S. attacked Iran on Feb. 28. Israel and the White House say it’s not but Pakistan, which brokered the deal, says Lebanon was specifically included.
Tehran, meanwhile, has said there would be no ceasefire as long as Israel kept up strikes within Lebanon.
“What [Israel] is about to create in Lebanon is a civil war,” the source said. “They will be at war forever and will never gain peace.”
Prime Minister Mark Carney said Lebanon’s inclusion in the Iran war ceasefire ‘certainly had been the understanding and that needs to be the reality on the ground.’ Israel’s most intensive strikes of the war on its northern neighbour on Wednesday killed more than 200 people, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry.
The source acknowledged a call to include Lebanon has been made publicly by French President Emmanuel Macron, but added the relationship between he and Trump is thought to be weak.
“Trump doesn’t care about Macron,” the source said, adding that intervention by other countries is necessary.
The source’s remarks come as Prime Minister Mark Carney publicly repeated his call for a ceasefire to include Lebanon.
“The ceasefire needs to include Lebanon, that certainly had been the understanding and that needs to be the reality on the ground,” Carney said at a Thursday news conference in Contrecoeur, Que.
He added that means Hezbollah must be brought under control. “Canada will use its offices, its influence to support [ceasefire efforts],” he said, also suggesting these efforts would not include sanctioning Israel.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese also called for Lebanon’s inclusion.
“I know that many Australians are concerned about the events that are occurring in Lebanon. This is a matter of not just the impact there, but the impact that it’s having right around the world,” he said.
Albanese’s government sent up to 85 military personnel to the United Arab Emirates as part of a surveillance and anti-drone defence effort at the Gulf country’s request early in the war, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Shay Ayoub, a Lebanese Canadian living in Beirut, says Israeli assaults on Lebanon come without notice. ‘You spend the entire day just listening to airstrikes,” she said. “It’s a very terrorizing experience.’
The Lebanese government said Wednesday Israeli forces had killed more than 250 people in their heaviest strikes on the country since fighting with Hezbollah started last month.
Last week, prior to the U.S.-Iran deal, Carney also called Israel’s actions in southern Lebanon an “illegal invasion” and called for a ceasefire.
Israel has accused the Lebanese army of failing to live up to its obligation to disarm Hezbollah as justification for occupying part of southern Lebanon. Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz has said his country will keep security control over a territory 30 kilometres north of Israel’s border, even after the war with Hezbollah is over.
