Hello and welcome to NewsHour. It's coming to you live from the BBC World Service Studios in central London.

I'm Tim Franks. And we're starting with the news that a ceasefire between Israel and the Lebanese militia Hezbollah appears close.

The Israeli Security Cabinet is due to meet tomorrow afternoon, local time to discuss a

deal which it seems, according to the wide reporting and wide briefing going on, would amount

initially to a 60-day truce. Israeli forces would pull back from southern Lebanon. Hezbollah forces

would head north, north of the Latani River, about 20 miles or 30 kilometres from the border with Israel.

Hesbola started firing missiles into Israel on October 8th last year, the day after the Hamas massacres,

which precipitated Israel's devastating offensive inside Gaza.

The conflict roared into far greater intensity in Lebanon

between Hezbollah and Israel last month, since when at least 3,700 people have been killed,

according to the Lebanese authorities, and more than a million forced from their homes.

Those same Lebanese officials say that Israeli airstrikes

today killed a further 31 people. In a moment, we'll hear from a minister in Lebanon. First,

Neri Zilber is a journalist based in Tel Aviv and an advisor to the Think Tank and advocacy group,

the Israeli Policy Forum. What's he hearing?

Nothing is complete, especially in Israel, until it actually comes to a vote,

and that's the prerogative of the Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

But according to our information, the cabinet is set to meet tomorrow,

and it's set to actually vote on whether to approve the ceasefire deal, drafted and

brokered obviously by the Biden administration.

The mood music and direction of travel is quite positive and has been now for the past week,

and best information that we have is that it's just a matter of days, perhaps, until a ceasefire

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