Efforts intensify to bring calm to the Lebanon-Israel border

BEIRUT — Foreign diplomats have put forward proposals to bring calm to the volatile Lebanon-Israel border, in parallel with the ongoing Gaza cease-fire negotiations, according to officials Wednesday. That includes a pullback by the militant Hezbollah group from the frontier and the deployment of thousands of additional Lebanese army troops.

The proposal put forward by European diplomats would be based on the “partial implementation” of the U.N. Security Council resolution that ended a 34-day war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006, two Lebanese political officials and a Lebanese diplomat based in Europe told The Associated Press.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose details of the talks.

Israel has publicly insisted on a full implementation of the resolution, meaning that Hezbollah has to move its fighters north of the Litani River, which is more than 12 miles north of the border.

Iran-backed Hezbollah, a Hamas ally, has refused to be part of the discussions while the Israel-Hamas war is ongoing, but once a cease-fire is in place, the group said it was open to moving its forces away from the border by a few miles in exchange for concessions by Israel over 13 disputed border areas, one of the officials familiar with the talks said Wednesday.

Iran’s regional militant group allies have said that once a cease-fire in Gaza comes into effect, all attacks by Iran-backed groups in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen would stop.

Britain and France’s top diplomats, among others, have recently visited Beirut amid concerns the Israel-Hamas war could expand to Lebanon where exchanges of fire have taken place on an almost daily basis between Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters for nearly four months.