US Envoy Heading From Lebanon to Israel in Bid to Clinch Truce
(Bloomberg) -- One of the White House’s most senior Middle East envoys will travel to Tel Aviv from Beirut on Wednesday, in a bid to clinch a cease-fire in the war between Israel and Hezbollah.
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Amos Hochstein’s trip comes follows meetings with Lebanese officials on Tuesday and Wednesday. He struck an optimistic tone, saying he’d managed to bridge some of the gaps between the warring sides.
US President Joe Biden is trying to end the conflict, which began over a year ago with the outbreak of war in Gaza, before he hands over to Donald Trump in January. A near-term truce looks likelier in Lebanon than in Gaza, with negotiations between Israel and Hamas having ground to a halt.
Hochstein, a former energy executive who handles Israel-Hezbollah affairs for the US, said a second day of talks with Lebanese House Speaker Nabih Berri “made additional progress.”
He told reporters he would go to Israel, where’s he’s likely to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, “to try to bring this to a close, if we can.”
Hezbollah’s leader, Naim Qasem, in a speech on Wednesday said he would wait to see Israel’s response to the group’s suggestions. A truce should include a complete end to Israel’s attacks on Lebanon, he said.
“Let’s see if this will yield a result or not,” he said, adding that Hezbollah will continue fighting until there’s an agreement.
Berri, the speaker, acts as an interlocutor between the West and Hezbollah and has broadly echoed Hochstein’s comments, saying are still “some technical details” to finalize.
The cease-fire plan is based on a UN Security Council Resolution, known as 1701, that ended the last war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006. While both Hezbollah and Israel breached the terms of the resolution, it helped preserve calm until the Lebanese group began missile and drone attacks on Oct. 8, 2023, in solidarity with Hamas.
The day before, Hamas attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking 250 hostage. Israel’s subsequent offensive on Gaza has killed almost 44,000 people, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in the Palestinian territory.
Hezbollah and Hamas are both supported by Iran, classed as terrorist groups by the US, and ideologically committed to Israel’s destruction.
Israel is insisting that, as per 1701, Hezbollah moves all its fighters back around 30 kilometers (19 miles) from the Lebanon-Israel border.
Netanyahu says that’s essential to enable around 60,000 displaced people to return to their homes in the north of Israel. A similar number of civilians have had to flee southern Lebanon.
Israel wants the right to keep striking Hezbollah positions if it deems the group to be breaching the terms of a cease-fire agreement. Both Hezbollah and the Lebanese government have said they won’t accept that. It’s unclear what the US is proposing to square those positions and guarantee enforcement of 1701.
“One can deduce from the arrival of special envoy Hochstein in the region that the Americans believe that such an arrangement is possible,” Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar told diplomats in a briefing, according to a transcript from his office. “The most important thing to emphasize is that we want to reach a deal that can stand the test of time.”
Around 2,500 people have been killed in Lebanon by Israeli strikes and a ground offensive in the past two months, while 1.2 million — more than a fifth of the population — have been displaced. Hezbollah continues to fire on Israel daily, and about 50 Israeli troops have been killed in combat in southern Lebanon.
--With assistance from Kateryna Kadabashy.
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