Hezbollah rejects Lebanon's ceasefire with Israel

**Alex Ritson** (0:00)
This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Alex Ritson and at 15 Hours GMT on Thursday the 4th of June, these are our main stories. The Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah flatly rejects a US-brokered ceasefire deal between Israel and Lebanon. Ukraine is accused of killing four people in Russian-occupied Crimea with a drone attack. SpaceX reveals the price for what's likely to be the biggest stock market flotation in history, which could make Elon Musk the world's first trillionaire.
Also in this podcast, the government of Fiji says no to an Australian company's plan to send rubbish to the Pacific nation.

**Phoebe Hobson** (0:47)
These projects, many people consider sort of like a bit of a colonial legacy of much wealthier nations sending what they over-consume to places that don't actually produce that much waste. By environmental activists, it's called waste colonialism.

**Alex Ritson** (0:58)
And FIFA bans football fans taking water bottles into World Cup stadiums in a U-turn which has alarmed health campaigners.
Hezbollah has flatly rejected a US-brokered ceasefire deal that Israel and Lebanon agreed in Washington on Wednesday. If it's to have any chance of success, the Iranian-backed group must stop attacking Israel and withdraw from southern Lebanon. Hezbollah's chief, Naim Qasim, said that as long as Lebanese villages were being bombed and people were being killed, northern Israel would not be safe, and the deal amounted to surrender and defeat. A truce was already meant to have been in place since mid-April, but more than 600 people have been killed in Lebanon since then, according to the World Health Organisation. And on Thursday morning, Israel's defence minister, Israel Katz, said that under the terms of the latest ceasefire agreement, fighting against Hezbollah could continue in southern Lebanon. James Menendez got this update from Lina Sinjab in Beirut. She explained that Lebanese government officials wanted a ceasefire but could do little without Hezbollah's support.

**Lina Sinjab** (2:10)
The government is adamant in its position to find a solution, an end to the war, but they have no say on the ground. We've heard from the leader of Hezbollah, Nayan Qasem, basically calling these kind of talks are shameless and humiliating for the nation and rejecting the terms of the ceasefire. And in fact, before his statement came out, we've already heard report of an Hezbollah attack on Israeli forces inside Lebanon. So, you know, they are the ones on the ground dictating the situation despite government's efforts to find a solution. The terms of having the Lebanese army to be in control of the south were already discussed in 2024 but never implemented. And even with this new detailed agreement of creating some sort of zones to have the Lebanese army in control and make sure that there is no presence of Hezbollah, Hezbollah is rejecting them. So unless they agree to this, it's hard for the government to proceed with this kind of agreement sponsored by the Americans.

**James Menendez** (3:14)
Yeah, Lina, is there pressure on the group from within Lebanon to stop what they're doing?

**Lina Sinjab** (3:19)
There is certainly mounting pressure from many people, but there is at the same time support among the Lebanese Shia community of the south because they also see that this severe aggression conducted by Israel on their land, the occupation of their land, the destruction of the infrastructure of the houses. Basically, they feel that Hezbollah is the only one who is able to stand up and not the government. But the reality is, the more Hezbollah attacks and fights back the Israelis, the more the Israelis are attacking and destroying. And as the Lebanese president today said, that probably this is the best option for Lebanon to find a way for gradual lasting solution for the south.

**James Menendez** (4:04)
Yes, I think he called it a last chance, didn't he? Is the fighting still going on today?

**Lina Sinjab** (4:09)
It's still going on, but definitely not with the same scale that in the past few days.
Mind you, the deal announced, it did not specify exactly when it's going to take effect, if it is starting today or tomorrow. Also, we heard earlier from the president, Joseph Aoun, saying we're waiting for answers from the parties involved. And the answer came from Naeem Qassem in the afternoon, the rejecting the terms of this ceasefire. So we'll have to wait and see if there's any other development or if this is going to be cancelled at all.

**Alex Ritson** (4:43)
Lina Sinjab, the authorities in the Russian occupied region of Crimea say at least four people have been killed in the latest wave of Ukrainian strikes. In recent days, local residents have been reporting increasingly loud explosions. I heard more from our chief analyst at BBC Monitoring, Vitaly Shevchenko, who's in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.