Posted on 10/30/24
| News Source: Times of Israel
US mediators are working on a proposal to halt hostilities between Israel and Lebanese terror group Hezbollah, starting with a 60-day ceasefire, two sources say.
The sources — a person briefed on the talks and a senior diplomat working on Lebanon — tell Reuters the two-month period would be used to finalize full implementation of the largely unenforced United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, adopted in 2006 to keep southern Lebanon free of arms outside state control.
Resolution 1701 has been the cornerstone of talks to end the past year of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, which erupted in parallel with the war in Gaza and has dramatically escalated over the last five weeks.
The two sources tell Reuters that the 60-day truce has replaced a proposal last month by the United States and other countries that envisioned a ceasefire for 21 days as a prelude to Resolution 1701 coming into full force.
Both, however, caution that the deal may still fall through. “There is an earnest push to get to a ceasefire, but it is still hard to get it to materialize,” the diplomat says.
The person briefed on the talks says Israel is still pushing for the ability to carry out “direct enforcement” of the truce via airstrikes or other military operations against Hezbollah if it violates the deal.
“We’d like to reiterate that we seek a diplomatic resolution that fully implements 1701 and gets both Israeli and Lebanese citizens back to their homes on both sides of the border,” says Sama Habib, spokesperson at the US embassy in Beirut, when asked about the reported proposal.