Israeli officials on Wednesday demanded freedom to strike Lebanon’s Hezbollah group as part of any ceasefire agreement, raising a potential complication as a top US envoy in the region tried to reach an agreement.
The development came as an airstrike hit the historic Syrian city of Palmyra, killing 36 people, according to Syrian state-run media, which blamed the attack on Israel. The Israeli army refused to comment.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz and Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said Israel seeks to reserve the right to respond to any violations committed by Hezbollah under an emerging proposal that would push the militant group’s fighters and Israeli ground forces out of the UN buffer zone in southern Lebanon. .
There were signs of progress on the ceasefire agreement, with Hezbollah allies in the Lebanese government saying the armed group had responded positively to the proposal.
“In any agreement we reach, we will have to maintain our freedom of action if there are violations,” Saar told dozens of foreign ambassadors in Jerusalem. “We will have to be able to act in time, before the problem gets worse.”
Katz said, in a meeting with intelligence officers, that “the condition for any political settlement in Lebanon” is the right of the Israeli army “to operate and protect the citizens of Israel from Hezbollah.”
Amos Hochstein, the Biden administration’s point man on Israel and Lebanon, has worked in recent days to push the two sides toward an agreement. This week he met with officials in Lebanon and said on Wednesday that he would travel to Israel in an effort “to try to end this matter if we can.”
On Tuesday, Hochstein said an agreement to end the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah was “within our reach.”
The emerging ceasefire agreement would push Hezbollah and Israel out of southern Lebanon
Hezbollah began firing into Israel on October 8, 2023, in solidarity with Hamas after its attack on southern Israel sparked conflict in the Gaza Strip. Israel responded with strikes on Lebanon, dramatically escalating its bombing in late September by launching a ground invasion within the border.
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During more than a year of exchanges, more than 3,500 people were killed in Lebanon, most of them in the past month, according to the Health Ministry, and more than a million people were displaced. It is not known how many Hezbollah fighters were killed.
In Israel, more than 70 people were killed by Hezbollah fire, and tens of thousands fled their homes.
Hockstein’s proposal is based on UN Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel. The resolution stipulates that only the Lebanese Army and United Nations peacekeeping forces should operate in southern Lebanon.
However, after 2006, Hezbollah did not completely end its presence in the south. Lebanon also accuses Israel of violating the resolution by controlling a small disputed border area and conducting repeated military flights over Lebanon.
Israel says that since then, Hezbollah has built military infrastructure throughout villages and towns in southern Lebanon.
The proposal currently being discussed will include an implementation plan and monitoring system to ensure each side implements its commitments to fully withdraw from the South. This may include the United States and France, but details are still unclear.
Progress has been made, but the deal is not yet done
The Israeli ministers did not clarify what would be included in Israel’s request to maintain freedom of operations. Since the 2006 war, Israel has struck Hezbollah on the few occasions when violence has broken out on the border, but any large-scale response could push the region back into unrest.
Lebanon is also unlikely to agree to a deal that would allow Israeli violations of its sovereignty.
Although the proposal attempts to stabilize the implementation mechanism, the failure to fully implement the UN resolution after the 2006 war could indicate difficulties in convincing the parties to commit to a sustainable ceasefire that would bring calm in the long term.
Israel continued to bomb Hezbollah throughout the ceasefire attempts, and rockets continued to fall on northern Israel. Any potential escalation could derail the talks.
The conflict in Gaza will continue even if Israel and Hezbollah cease fire
Even if a ceasefire is reached between Israel and Hezbollah, the conflict in Gaza will enter its fourteenth month.
Israel is still fighting Hamas there, pushing the death toll to nearly 44,000 — more than half of them women and children, according to local health officials, who do not distinguish between civilians and combatants in their counts.
While Hezbollah has said throughout the Gaza conflict that it would not stop firing at Israel until the fighting in the Palestinian territories ended, that condition was dropped in September after Israel intensified its attack on the militant group, killing its senior leadership and reducing its military capabilities. .
This leaves Gaza waiting for a ceasefire of its own, with people there still suffering from a humanitarian crisis that has displaced much of the enclave’s 2.3 million residents and sparked widespread hunger, especially in the north, where the United Nations says there is no food. Or almost food. Humanitarian aid has been delivered for more than 40 days due to the Israeli military blockade there.
International mediation efforts have repeatedly faltered due to disagreement between Israel and Hamas over whether the conflict should end as part of a ceasefire agreement, with Israel insisting it wants to maintain the presence of its forces in certain areas.
Hamas sparked the conflict in Gaza when its fighters stormed Israel on October 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and kidnapping about 250. About 100 hostages remain inside Gaza, and at least a third of them are believed to be dead. .
Other troubled areas in the Middle East are unlikely to be affected by the ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel, including Syria.
Israel often targets military sites and installations linked to Iran-linked groups in Syria but rarely acknowledges strikes. The death toll in Wednesday’s raid in Palmyra was unusually high.
Syrian news agency SANA said that besides the 36 deaths, the raid on Palmyra also injured more than 50 people and caused “major material damage to the targeted buildings” and the surrounding area. Palmyra is famous for its nearby historic Roman temple complex, but it was not immediately clear whether the ruins had been damaged.
The temple complex has already been severely damaged for years by the Islamic State group on its rampage across Syria.
—Chehayeb reported from Beirut.
