Israeli Cabinet to decide on ceasefire agreement with Lebanon | Lebanon

Israel’s security cabinet is due to meet on Tuesday to decide on a ceasefire deal with Lebanon after more than a year of fighting between Israeli forces and the Shiite militia Hezbollah.

Under the deal being considered, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) would reportedly withdraw entirely from southern Lebanon, Hezbollah would withdraw its heavy weapons north of the Litani River, about 25 km north of the Israeli border, and the Lebanese army would move in to provide security in the border zone alongside an existing UN peacekeeping force for an initial 60-day transition phase.

The White House national security spokesman warned Monday that the deal the Biden administration had been trying to broker for months was not yet complete.

“There are still some processes, things that I think they’re working through,” John Kirby said. He called the discussions constructive so far, adding: “We think the course of this is going in a very positive direction. But nothing is done until everything is done. Nothing is negotiated until everything is negotiated.”

Hezbollah has not been a direct party to the negotiations, where the Lebanese government has given assurances that the militia would abide by the terms of the agreement.

Under the proposed cease-fire plan, the United States would lead a five-nation international monitoring committee to act as an arbiter of violations, and the United States is said to have offered guaranteed support for Israeli military operations across the border in the event that Hezbollah goes on an offensive or reconstitutes its forces south of Litani.

The conflict started on October 8 last year, when Hezbollah fired shells and missiles into Israeli border towns in solidarity with Hamas, and fighting has intensified significantly since late September, when Israel launched a ground invasion amid intensified bombing of Lebanon, which has killing around 3,500 Lebanese as well as much of Hezbollah’s leadership.

Israel carried out intensive airstrikes on Monday. The IDF said it had hit 25 command centers in Lebanon linked to Hezbollah’s Executive Council, the militia’s governing body, including four targets in Dahiyeh, the predominantly Shia district of southern Beirut. Before the strikes, the IDF issued warnings on social media telling people to evacuate designated buildings in Dahiyeh and the southern cities of Nabatieh and Tyre.

UN peacekeeping force Unifil said it was “gravely concerned” by deadly attacks on the Lebanese army, which reported 19 soldiers killed. On Sunday, the IDF expressed regret for an attack on a Lebanese army position that it said was a mistake, adding that Israeli operations were “solely aimed at Hezbollah”.

Sirens sounded over northern Israel in response to reports of Hezbollah rockets fired from Lebanon headed for the Israeli border. Hezbollah fired more than 200 rockets at northern Israel on Sunday, one of the heaviest attacks since the start of the current conflict.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is under domestic political pressure to agree a deal that would allow some 60,000 Israelis from the border region to return home after spending a year in displacement camps, and their safe return is Israel’s primary war objective in Lebanon.

Reacting to the news of a possible ceasefire, the mayors of some northern Israeli cities rejected it as a “surrender agreement” as it would not involve the complete elimination of Hezbollah from the border zone and therefore could not guarantee the safety of returning residents.

Israel’s ambassador to Washington, Mike Herzog, told Israel Army Radio that a ceasefire could be reached within days.

Herzog said there were points left to finalize, but added: “We are close to an agreement.”

Israel’s UN ambassador, Danny Danon, said on Monday that ceasefire talks were moving forward, but insisted that Israel would retain its capacity to attack southern Lebanon in any deal. He confirmed that the issue would be discussed by Israel’s security cabinet over the next two days.

Lebanon’s deputy speaker of parliament, Elias Bou Saab, told Reuters there were “no serious obstacles” to starting the implementation of the ceasefire. Reuters also quoted an unnamed Lebanese official and Western diplomat as telling Lebanese officials that a ceasefire could be announced within hours.

The The American news site Axios reported that a deal was nearing completion last week, but was delayed by the International Criminal Court’s decision to issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, and notably France’s apparent indication on Thursday that it would fulfill its obligations as state. has signed the court’s articles of incorporation.

The immediate Israeli response was to oppose French membership of the five-nation monitoring committee envisioned in the cease-fire agreement, despite France’s historic ties and long-standing commitment to Lebanon. Israel reportedly dropped its opposition to French participation in the committee on Monday after Paris clarified its response to the court ruling, questioning whether France would arrest Netanyahu or Gallant if they visited its “legally complex” territory.

On Monday, the Élysée said ceasefire talks had made significant progress and urged both sides to seize the opportunity.

The Biden administration has been working on a deal for months, eager to limit the spread of the Gaza war and eager to secure a diplomatic victory in his final two months in office before Donald Trump takes over. A US special envoy, Amos Hochstein, was in the region last week to try to finalize the deal.

The proposed deal is closely modeled on a ceasefire agreement that ended Israel’s last major war with Hezbollah in 2006, which also involved an Israeli and Hezbollah withdrawal from the zone between the Litani River and the border. It was never fully implemented.