Netanyahu meets US envoys to advance Lebanon ceasefire

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met On Thursday, American envoys came to Israel to advance a ceasefire in Lebanon, stressing that a truce with Hezbollah must guarantee security. security of his country.

This visit to Jerusalem by White House emissaries Amos Hochstein and Brett McGurk aims to end more than a month of war between Israel and the Iranian-backed Lebanese Islamist movement.

According to Israeli media quoting government sources, the plan drawn up by the American mediators provides for a withdrawal of Hezbollah from southern Lebanon, which borders Israel, as well as the withdrawal of the Israeli army from this region, control of which would revert to the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers.

Despite the blows inflicted on Hezbollah, the Shiite movement continues to fire rockets at Israel, where seven people have been killed in the north of the country, while the Israeli army has carried out new deadly strikes in Gaza and the Lebanon.

“The main issue … is Israel's ability and determination to uphold the agreement and prevent any threat to its security from Lebanon,” Netanyahu told the U.S. envoys, according to his office.

The visit is also intended, according to the State Department, to discuss “ways to end” the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, an ally of Hezbollah.

A few days before the U.S. presidential election on November 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 residents of northern Israel displaced by incessant rocket fire for more than a year.

Southern Lebanon © AFP – Omar KAMAL

According to Israeli Channel 12, Israel is demanding the withdrawal of Hezbollah north of the Litani River, about thirty kilometers north of the Israeli border, the deployment of the Lebanese army on the border, an international mechanism for implementing the truce and a guarantee that Israel will retain its freedom of action in the event of threats.

Israeli officials also said that troops engaged in a ground offensive in southern Lebanon since September 30 would not withdraw until an agreement was reached that met Israel's security requirements.

– Separation of fronts –

Screenshot of the new leader of Lebanon's Hezbollah, Naim Qassem, during his speech to the Islamist movement's al-Manar TV channel from an undisclosed location, October 30, 2024 © Al-Manar – –

On Wednesday, Hezbollah's new leader, Naim Qassem, said his movement could continue to fight Israel, while saying it was ready for a ceasefire “under conditions,” without specifying which ones.

On the same day, Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati said that Hezbollah had been “delayed” in dissociating the Lebanese front from the Gaza front, while the movement has been saying for months that it wants to fight “the enemy” until the end of the Israeli offensive in Gaza.

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Civil Defense personnel clear debris from airstrikes that targeted the village of Abbasiyeh in southern Lebanon on October 31, 2024 © AFP – KAWNAT HAJU

A ceasefire with Hezbollah appears increasingly likely, according to Israeli media reports, after Israeli Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi reported the “total dismantling of the chain of command” of the Lebanese movement.

The war that has been raging since October 7, 2023 in the Gaza Strip spread more than a month ago to Lebanon, where Israel has been carrying out strikes since September 23, mainly on Hezbollah strongholds in the south and east of the country, and on the southern suburbs of Beirut.

On Thursday, six medics affiliated with Hezbollah and its ally Amal were killed in Israeli raids in southern Lebanon, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health. A series of raids also targeted the outskirts of the southern city of Tyre, according to an AFP photographer.

Clashes are also taking place between Israeli soldiers and Hezbollah fighters in the southern border regions, according to the Lebanese news agency Ani, which also reported airstrikes in the area around Baalbeck in eastern Lebanon.

Vehicle covered in dust after airstrikes that targeted the village of Abbassiyeh, in southern Lebanon, on October 31, 2024 © AFP – KAWNAT HAJU

More than 1,780 people have been killed since September 23 in Lebanon, according to an AFP tally based on data official.

In Metula, a city in northern Israel, “a farmer and four foreign agricultural workers” were killed by rockets fired from Lebanon, according to Mayor David Azoulai.

“A man in his thirties and a woman in her sixties” also died in similar rocket attacks in northern Israel, according to Israeli emergency services.

– Refusal of a “temporary truce” –

An injured Palestinian lies on a trolley in Beit Lahia, in the northern Gaza Strip, on October 31, 2024 © AFP – –

In the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army has mainly concentrated its deadly offensive in the north since October 6, where Hamas is seeking to regroup its forces according to it.

Seven airstrikes 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 “of less than a month” in Gaza, providing for an exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners and an increase in humanitarian aid in the besieged territory, a source close to the negotiations.

But Hamas official Taher al-Nounou reiterated his movement's refusal of a “temporary truce,” demanding an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and a “permanent end” to the war.

Palestinians gather around a person killed in a strike outside a hospital in the northern Gaza Strip, October 31, 2024 © AFP – Omar AL-QATTAA

The war was triggered on October 7, 2023 by the unprecedented attack led by Hamas against 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 were declared dead by the Israeli army.

The retaliatory offensive carried out by Israel in Gaza left 43,204 dead, mostly civilians, according to data from the Ministry of Health of the Hamas government, deemed reliable by the UN.

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