A top U.S. envoy to the Middle East on Tuesday signaled progress in negotiations between Israel and Hezbollah on a cease-fire proposal that, if agreed upon, could potentially ease hostilities in a region already on edge over Israel’s war in Gaza.
The envoy, Amos Hochstein, said at a news conference in Beirut, Lebanon, that the gaps between the two sides had “narrowed” in discussions in recent weeks, though ultimately any results from the negotiations would be “the decision of the parties.”
“We have a real opportunity to bring this conflict to an end,” Mr. Hochstein said. That outcome is “within our grasp,” he added.
Mr. Hochstein’s visit was widely considered a sign that the United States’ efforts to broker a truce were moving forward. He met earlier on Tuesday with Nabih Berri, the Lebanese Parliament speaker who is a key interlocutor between the United States and Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militant group and political party in Lebanon that is at war with Israel.
Though both Mr. Hochstein and Lebanese officials have spoken of progress in the discussions, it is unclear whether those talks have ironed out details. Previous U.S.-led negotiations on a cease-fire stalled in September as the war escalated.
Last week, the United States presented Lebanon with the terms of a new cease-fire plan devised by Israeli and American officials, Lebanese officials said. The initial response to the U.S. plan from Lebanese officials and Hezbollah was “positive” but some points still required discussion, according to Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, who spoke with Al Araby TV, a Qatar-based broadcaster, on Monday.
The embattled Lebanese government has been pushing to revive a U.N. resolution that ended the last major war between Israel and Hezbollah, in 2006. The agreement was widely considered a failure in the years after that monthlong war ended, but it is viewed today by Lebanese and U.S. officials as a potential road map to end the fighting.
The resolution calls for Hezbollah to withdraw from southern Lebanon and for only the Lebanese military and U.N. peacekeepers to operate in the region south of the Litani River in Lebanon, which runs around 20 miles north of the Israeli border.
It is not clear how Hezbollah’s withdrawal from that area would be enforced. Both the Lebanese Army and U.N. peacekeepers have largely avoided confrontations with Hezbollah fighters. The Lebanese army is also widely viewed as too weak to defend the country’s borders against any future Israeli military action.
In prior discussions on a truce this fall, Israeli officials pushed for guarantees that Israel could continue to strike Hezbollah within Lebanon if they deemed it necessary — a condition that Lebanese officials say they have rejected.
Mr. Hochstein’s visit to Lebanon comes amid an intensified Israeli military push there that appears aimed at pressuring Hezbollah to accept the terms of a cease-fire, analysts say. On Monday evening, Israeli airstrikes hit a building in central Beirut — the third instance of Israeli airstrikes within the city limits in two days. The strike, which hit the Zuqaq al-Blat neighborhood, killed at least five people and injured 24 others, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.
The Israeli military declined to comment on two of the three strikes, confirming only one and saying that it had targeted Mohammed Afif, the head of Hezbollah’s media office, who was killed. Over the past few days, Hezbollah has launched dozens of rocket and drone attacks at Israel.
Over the past week, Israel has also conducted intense bombardment of the Dahiya, the area just south of Beirut that is in effect governed by Hezbollah. In the country’s south, Israeli forces appear to be making incursions deeper into Lebanon, beyond villages along the border.
Despite official claims of progress in the cease-fire talks, many Lebanese remain pessimistic about the prospects of the conflict subsiding soon.
“We have no trust in negotiations, no hope of an imminent cease-fire,” Zeinab Atwi, 26, said on Tuesday as she stood across the street from the wreckage of the building struck in Zuqaq al-Blat the night before.
Her cousin, Hussein Atwi, had been killed in that strike, she said. When the war escalated, they moved from their family’s homes in the Dahiya to a rented apartment in the neighborhood, thinking it would be safer there. Mr. Atwi had gone to a nearby cafe that was struck an hour after he arrived.
“There is nowhere safe left in Beirut,” Ms. Atwi said.
Here are other developments:
Sanctions on settlers: The U.S. Treasury Department announced on Monday that it was placing sanctions on Amana, an organization involved in the development of settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank that it called a “key part of the Israeli extremist settlement movement.” The department said in a statement that the group, which had already been placed under British and Canadian sanctions, had ties with people whom the United States has accused of carrying out violence against Palestinians in the West Bank. The leader of Amana, Zeev Hever, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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