The United States, European Union and other allies including several Arab states issued a joint call for a 21-day halt in Israel's assault after Israeli air strikes allegedly against Hezbollah killed hundreds of people, many of them civilians, and displaced tens of thousands in Lebanon this week.

The appeal for the three-week ceasefire came hours after Israeli military chief, Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi, on Wednesday told soldiers to prepare for a possible ground offensive in Lebanon.

Israel's far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a key member of the cabinet, opposed the ceasefire proposal, insisting that continuing the Israeli assault on Lebanon was the only way forward.

Netanyahu's coalition relies on the support of Smotrich and other far-right members who consistently also opposed a truce in Israel's war on Gaza, which has not stopped.

"The campaign in the north should end with a single result: crushing Hezbollah and elimination of its ability to harm the residents of the north," Smotrich said on social media platform X.

"The enemy must not be given time to recover from the heavy blows it has suffered and reorganise itself to continue the war after 21 days," he said.

"Hezbollah's surrender or war -- this is the only way to bring back the residents and security to the north and the country."

In a separate statement on X, Foreign Minister Israel Katz also opposed any halt to Israel's Lebanon assault.

"There will be no ceasefire in the north," Katz said, describing Hezbollah as a "terrorist organization," despite Israel’s war on Gaza that has killed at least 41,000 Palestinians and reduced the Gaza Strip to rubble.

Gaza
 

Israel's main opposition leader Yair Lapid said the Israeli government should only agree to a seven-day ceasefire.

This would "prevent Hezbollah from restoring its command and control systems," Lapid said on X.

"We will not accept any proposal that does not include the withdrawal of Hezbollah from our northern border."

Far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir has also been a strong advocate of continuing Israel's war on Gaza, where Israeli forces have been killing tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians since the war began on 7 October.

Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel from Lebanon a day later in solidarity with Palestinians suffering under Israel's decades-long occupation. Hezbollah has long insisted that its rocket attacks against Israel would halt as soon as a ceasefire in Gaza.

Since then, Israel and Hezbollah have been engaged in fierce cross-border clashes, which worsened this week when Israel launched a withering bombing campaign in southern Lebanon targeting Hezbollah, killing scores of civilians in the deadliest violence since Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war.

*This story was edited by Ahram Online.