U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein (left) and Benjamin Netanyahu. (Credit: Al-Markazia)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met U.S. envoys in Israel on Thursday to press for a cease-fire in Lebanon, stressing that a truce with Hezbollah must guarantee his country's security.
The visit to Jerusalem by White House envoys Amos Hochstein and Brett McGurk is aimed at ending more than a month of war between Israel and the Iranian-backed party.
According to Israeli media quoting government sources, the plan drawn up by the American mediators calls for the withdrawal of Hezbollah from southern Lebanon, bordering Israel, and the withdrawal of the Israeli army from the region, with control reverting to the Lebanese Army and U.N. peacekeepers.
Despite the blows inflicted on Hezbollah, the latter continues to fire rockets into Israel, where seven people were killed in the north of the country, while the Israeli army carried out new deadly strikes in Gaza and Lebanon. “The main issue ... is Israel's ability and determination to enforce the agreement and prevent any threat to its security from Lebanon,” Netanyahu told the U.S. envoys, according to his office.
According to the State Department, the purpose of the visit is also to discuss “ways of ending” the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, an ally of Hezbollah.
A few days before the U.S. presidential election on Nov. 5, the Americans are hoping to reach a framework agreement in Lebanon, while Israeli leaders want to neutralize Hezbollah in the southern border regions of the country to allow the return of some 60,000 inhabitants of northern Israel displaced by incessant rocket fire for over a year.
According to Israeli Channel 12, Israel is demanding the withdrawal of Hezbollah north of the Litani River, some 30 kilometers north of the Israeli border, the deployment of the Lebanese Army at the border, an international mechanism to enforce the truce and a guarantee that Israel will retain its freedom of action in the event of threats.
Israeli officials have also said that soldiers engaged in a ground offensive in southern Lebanon since Sept. 30 would not withdraw until an agreement was reached that would satisfy Israel's security requirements.
Dissociation of fronts
On Wednesday, the new head of Hezbollah, Naim Qassem, said that his party could continue to fight Israel, but said it was ready for a cease-fire “under conditions,” without specifying which ones.
On the same day, the Lebanese Prime Minister, Najib Mikati, said that Hezbollah had been “slow” to separate the Lebanese front from the Gaza front, even though the group has been saying for months that it would fight “the enemy” until the end of the Israeli offensive in Gaza.
According to Israeli media reports, a cease-fire with Hezbollah seems increasingly likely, after Israeli Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi reported the “total dismantling of the chain of command” of the Lebanese group.
The war that has been raging in the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7, 2023, spread to Lebanon over a month ago, where Israel has been carrying out strikes since Sept. 23, mainly on Hezbollah strongholds in the south and east of the country, and on the southern suburbs of Beirut.
On Thursday, six rescue workers affiliated to Hezbollah and its ally Amal were killed in Israeli raids in southern Lebanon, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry. A series of raids also targeted the outskirts of the southern city of Sour, according to an AFP photographer.
Clashes between Israeli soldiers and Hezbollah fighters are also taking place in the southern border regions, according to the official National News Agency (NNA), which also reported air strikes in the vicinity of Baalbeck, in eastern Lebanon. More than 1,780 people have been killed since Sept. 23 in Lebanon, according to an AFP count based on official data.
In Metoula, a town in northern Israel, “a farmer and four foreign farm workers” were killed by rockets fired from Lebanon, according to Mayor David Azoulai. “A man in his 30s and a woman in her 60s” were also killed by similar rocket fire in northern Israel, according to Israeli emergency services.
Refusal of a 'temporary truce'
In the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army has been concentrating its deadly offensive mainly in the north since Oct. 6, where it believes Hamas is seeking to regroup its forces. Seven air strikes targeted Jabalia, Beit Lahia and Gaza City, according to witnesses.
The mediating countries, Egypt, the United States and Qatar, are preparing to propose a truce “lasting less than a month” in Gaza, providing for an exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners and an increase in humanitarian aid to the besieged territory, a source close to the negotiations said on Wednesday. But a Hamas official, Taher al-Nounou, reiterated his movement's refusal of a “temporary truce,” calling for an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and a “permanent end” to the war.
The war was triggered on Oct. 7, 2023 by Hamas's unprecedented attack on Israel, which resulted in the death of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data, including hostages killed or who died in captivity.
Of the 251 people kidnapped, 97 remain hostages in Gaza, 34 of whom have been declared dead by the Israeli army.
Israel's retaliatory offensive in Gaza has claimed 43,204 lives, most of them civilians, according to data from Gaza's Health Ministry.
