The Hezbollah media wing in Syria announced on Thursday that Hezbollah and Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) have reached a ceasefire agreement in Jorud Arsal at the Lebanese-Syrian border in order to focus on the negotiations and reach a peaceful solution to resolve the situation.
The ceasefire started at 6:00 am and field sources confirmed that both sides have been committed to the ceasefire so far. Moreover, Hezbollah confirmed that it will respond to any breach of the agreement by HTS, which hasn’t announced its commitment to the ceasefire officially so far.
According to the agreement, HTS will release 5 Hezbollah fighters that were captured during the current battles and in previous battles in 2015 and 2014.
The commander of the Lebanese Military Intelligence, Major General Abbas Ibrahim said: “We are optimist about the ceasefire in Jorud Arsal despite some difficulties.”
Major General Ibrahim, who runs the negotiations, said that HTS militants would leave to Idlib and stressed that the duration of negotiations is limited and that this opportunity won’t be available soon.
Lebanese sources confirmed that negotiations between Lebanese Military Intelligence and ISIS fighters deployed at the Syrian-Lebanese border are also ongoing. However, ISIS fighters haven’t provided information yet about their numbers or about Lebanese soldiers they had captured in 2014 in Arsal town.
Hezbollah and the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) are expected to launch a new joint operation against ISIS at the Syrian-Lebanese border if negotiations with the group fails.
