Middle East crisis live: Far-right Israeli minister speaks out against Lebanon ceasefire with cabinet due to discuss deal | Israel

The Times of Israel reports that local community leaders in the north of Israel have expressed anger at the prospect of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government agreeing to a ceasefire with Hezbollah to end hostilities in Lebanon.

Metula mayor David Azoulay reportedly told Israel’s Channel 13:

Do not surrender to terrorism. Do not make this shameful agreement. This is a sad arrangement, an agreement of surrender by the Israeli government to Hezbollah, an arm of Iran. The threat has not been removed. We will not agree to return to the reality of [a new] 7 October in the north. For as long as there is no real security here, not just a “sense of security,” we will do everything to not return.

The Times of Israel also quotes the chair of the Margaliot moshav, Eitan Davidi, who said:

We will be relying on Lebanon to guarantee our safety. Northern residents didn’t leave their homes for over a year, just to return to having Hezbollah as neighbours. The massacre in the south will pale in comparison to what will happen here.

About 60,000 Israelis have been forced to flee their homes in the north of the country due to near-constant rocket fire from Hezbollah in Lebanon. Tens of thousands of Lebanese people have also been displaced on the other side of the UN-drawn blue line that separates the two countries.

Josep Borrell, the EU’s top diplomat, has said there is no excuse for not implementing a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Reuters reports he said that the proposed deal has the necessary security guarantees for Israel, and that the international community should put pressure on Israel to approve it.

Borrell also referenced the recent decision by the international criminal court to issue arrest warrants for the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, the country’s former defense minister Yoav Gallant, and the Hamas military leader Mohammed Deif for alleged war crimes relating to the Gaza war.

Borrell said he hoped that Europeans would fulfil their obligations under international law, saying it was not possible to approve of the court when it pursues a case against Vladimir Putin, and oppose it when it puts a case against Netanyahu.

77-year-old Borrell is to be replaced in the role he has held since 2019 by former Estonian prime minister Kaja Kallas at the beginning of December.

Itamar Ben-Gvir, the far-right interior security minister in Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government, has said a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah would be a “historical missed opportunity”.

Media in Israel quotes him in an interview with Kan Radio saying:

We have a historic opportunity to decisively act in the south [in Gaza] and north [in Lebanon]. It will be a historical missed opportunity if we stop everything and go backwards.

In reference to the Israeli prime minister’s apparent readiness for a deal, Ben-Gvir said “it’s possible that someone doesn’t want to hear my objections.”

Welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the Middle East crisis.

Israel’s security cabinet is due to meet on Tuesday to decide on a ceasefire agreement with Lebanon after more than a year of fighting between Israeli forces and the Shia militia Hezbollah.

Under the deal being considered, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) would reportedly withdraw entirely from southern Lebanon, Hezbollah would pull its heavy weapons north of the Litani River, about 16 miles (25km) north of the Israeli border, and the Lebanese army would move in to provide security in the border zone alongside an existing UN peacekeeping force, during an initial 60-day transition phase.

Israeli ambassador to the US Mike Herzog told Israeli Army Radio on Monday that there remained “points to finalise” and that any deal required agreement from the government. But he said “we are close to a deal” and that “it can happen within days.”

In other developments:

• A Guardian investigation has found that Israel used a US munition to target and kill three journalists and wound three more in a 25 October attack in south Lebanon which legal experts have called a potential war crime.

• Israel’s military launched airstrikes across Lebanon on Monday, unleashing explosions throughout the country and killing at least 31. Israeli strikes hit commercial and residential buildings in Beirut as well as in the port city of Tyre. Military officials said they targeted areas known as Hezbollah strongholds.

• Syrian state television reported Israeli strikes on several bridges in the Qusayr region near the Lebanese border on Monday, with the defence ministry reporting two civilians injured in the attacks.

• Weather is compounding the challenges facing displaced people in Gaza, where heavy rains and dropping temperatures are making tents and other temporary shelters uninhabitable. Government officials in the Hamas-controlled coastal enclave said on Monday that nearly 10,000 tents had been swept away by flooding over the past two days, adding to their earlier warnings about the risks facing those sheltering in low-lying floodplains.

• An Israeli strike has wounded the director of Kamal Adwan hospital, one of the few hospitals still partially operating in the northernmost part of Gaza, local and international health officials said. Dr Hossam Abu Safiya was in his office when it was hit by an Israeli quadcopter drone on Sunday, according to the humanitarian organisation MedGlobal.