US ENVOY PUSHES FOR PEACE ON ISRAEL-LEBANON BORDER

▶ Hezbollah willing to sit down for talks only if ceasefire reached in Gaza Strip, sources say

Efforts to organise talks between Israel and Lebanese militia Hezbollah are making progress, sources have told The National.

US envoy Amos Hochstein has been working with Lebanon’s Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, who leads the Hezbollah-aligned Amal Movement, to set up the talks.

The US has no direct contact with Hezbollah, which it considers a terrorist group.

The talks will be aimed at ending hostilities on the Israel-Lebanon border and resolving disputes over the UN-demarcated frontier.

Hezbollah does not oppose these objectives, and has given its approval for negotiations to begin when a ceasefire is reached in Gaza, the sources said on Thursday.

Mr Hochstein arrived in Lebanon on Monday, where he met Mr Berri and other officials before travelling to Israel in search of a solution to the border clashes.

The sources said a committee has been created at the US embassy in Beirut with the task of “crafting the proposal, covering its security, economic, and political dimensions”.

Mr Hochstein has not yet revealed any details of his long-awaited plan to de-escalate tension between Israel and Lebanon and implement UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which was passed in 2006 to end that year’s war between the two countries.

The resolution called for Hezbollah to withdraw its fighters north of the Litani River, from the border, and barred Israel from conducting military operations in Lebanon.

“The parameters are well known: strengthening the presence of the Lebanese Armed Forces in the southern part of the country, diminishing Hezbollah’s capacity at the border in exchange for Israeli concessions and border negotiations,” a western diplomat

told The National. “These are the fundamentals. It’s broad, so there is room for negotiations, but Mr Hochstein has not yet delved into that level of detail.

“But as long as there is no ceasefire in Gaza, everything will stay at a standstill.”

Talks in Cairo to secure a truce in Gaza ended without a breakthrough on Thursday, but Hamas said they may resume at the weekend.

Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said on Tuesday that Mr Hochstein “has developed a proposal and put it on the table”.

“Speaker Berri is studying it, and a response will be provided. We also have questions and are awaiting responses from Mr Hochstein,” he said in a televised interview.

“An agreement for the Ramadan period will take place in Gaza, with reports suggesting a ceasefire before Ramadan. Here, negotiations will take place this month.”

Mr Mikati said he and Mr Berri would “contact Mr Hochstein within 48 hours” to discuss the proposal.

A Hezbollah source declined to comment on Mr Hochstein’s visit, but said “the door to negotiations will open after the ceasefire [in Gaza], not before”.

“We don’t discuss our conditions until there is a ceasefire. Then we will see.

“We hope this war will end soon, realising two objectives: the interests of Lebanon and the defence of Gaza,” the Hezbollah source said.

Israel has increased the range of its cross-border strikes in recent weeks, hitting deeper into Lebanon with the aim of pushing Hezbollah north through “diplomacy or force”.

Hezbollah has shown little interest in a full-scale war, and has been trying to limit escalation of the clashes.

Last week, Israeli and Lebanese security sources told The National that Israel had planned an invasion of southern Lebanon to push back Hezbollah, while the militia has been preparing for “all scenarios”.

But Hezbollah does not expect the situation to reach that point, its deputy leader Naim Qassem has said.

“We are no closer to a total war in Lebanon,” Mr Qassem said in a televised interview.