Hezbollah rejects ceasefire plan declared in Washington

BEIRUT/JERUSALEM — Hezbollah rejected a ceasefire plan agreed by the Lebanese and Israeli governments in U.S.-mediated talks, as Israel kept up strikes in southern Lebanon on Thursday and said it wouldn't be withdrawing from the south.

The United States announced on Wednesday that Lebanon and Israel had agreed to implement a ceasefire contingent on Iran-backed Hezbollah ceasing fire and evacuating its fighters from areas of southern Lebanon near the border.

Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem, whose Lebanese Shi'ite Muslim group is not a party to the talks, said the negotiations were shameless, rejecting the Washington declaration as "a roadmap for the annihilation of a section of the Lebanese people and the enslavement of the rest." "As long as the occupation exists, the resistance will continue," he said in a written statement.

Hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel reignited on March 2, when the group opened fire in support of Tehran as it came under U.S.-Israeli attack.

The war has ground on despite several ceasefires declared from Washington since April.

The war has become a sticking po