{"id":17690,"date":"2024-11-18T18:13:52","date_gmt":"2024-11-18T18:13:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/?p=17690"},"modified":"2024-11-18T18:13:52","modified_gmt":"2024-11-18T18:13:52","slug":"us-envoy-due-in-beirut-as-lebanon-responds-positively-to-ceasefire-proposal-prime-minister-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/?p=17690","title":{"rendered":"US envoy due in Beirut as Lebanon responds \u2018positively\u2019 to ceasefire proposal, prime minister says"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

By Tamara Qiblawi, Becky Anderson and Dana Karni, CNN<\/p>\n

(CNN) \u2014 <\/b>United States envoy Amos Hochstein<\/a> is due to visit Beirut \u201cimminently\u201d after Lebanon responded \u201cpositively\u201d to a US-backed proposal to stop the Israel-Hezbollah war<\/a>, Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati said on Monday.<\/p>\n

Mikati, speaking to Al Araby TV news channel, said the Lebanese government was seeking clarification on some \u201cunclear points\u201d in the proposal. Mikati said large parts of the draft agreement had been resolved, with some points that required \u201cclarification\u201d requiring a \u201cface to face\u201d discussions with Hochstein.<\/p>\n

US ambassador to Lebanon Lisa Johnson relayed the proposal to the Lebanese government via Nabih Berri, the parliament speaker, on Thursday night, a Lebanese official told CNN earlier.<\/p>\n

According to the official, Hezbollah reviewed the proposal and submitted their response to Lebanese authorities on Sunday evening. The source described the response as largely \u201cpositive.\u201d<\/p>\n

The US-backed proposal aims to achieve a 60-day cessation of hostilities and is being portrayed as the basis of a lasting ceasefire, according to the Lebanese official, adding that terms lie within the parameters of UN Resolution 1701 which ended<\/a> the Lebanon-Israel war of 2006. The resolution stipulates that the only armed groups in the area south of Lebanon\u2019s Litani River should be the Lebanese army and UN peacekeeping forces.<\/p>\n

The proposal also requires Israeli ground forces, operating in southern Lebanon since late September, to withdraw from the country and demands a stricter enforcement of resolution 1701, according to the Lebanese official.<\/p>\n

Israeli \u2018operational freedom\u2019<\/h2>\n

An Israeli source familiar with the talks however cast doubt on the likelihood of an imminent deal, noting that while progress has been made, Hezbollah\u2019s refusal to accept Israel\u2019s demand for the right to strike Hezbollah targets in the event of a ceasefire violation could jeopardize the process. Without this clause, the source added, it is uncertain whether Netanyahu can secure cabinet approval for the agreement.<\/p>\n

The Israeli source added that Hochstein has not yet confirmed when he will arrive in the region.<\/p>\n

Bezalel Smotrich<\/a>, the far-right Israeli minister of finance, said on Monday that \u201cfull operational freedom\u201d for the Israeli military in southern Lebanon is \u201ca non-negotiable condition.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of the war, we will have operational freedom in Gaza, and so we will also have operational freedom in Lebanon. We will not agree to any arrangement that is not worth the paper it is written on,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are changing the security paradigm and will not return to decades of concepts of containment and threats without response. This will not happen again.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his interview with Al Araby TV, Mikati dismissed reports of demands to give the Israeli military operational freedom in south Lebanon as \u201cspeculation,\u201d adding that he hasn\u2019t seen such a clause in the proposal.<\/p>\n

Berri, who leads the Hezbollah-allied Amal party and is an interlocutor in the talks, told Saudi-owned Asharq Al Awsat newspaper on Friday that the proposal he received from the US does not include mention of Israeli military operational freedom in Lebanon, adding that the US knows that such a demand would be \u201cunacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Lebanese official who spoke to CNN also said the proposal does not refer to Israel\u2019s right to continue striking Lebanon after a truce.<\/p>\n

The source also said Hezbollah has agreed to separate its conflict with Israel from Israel\u2019s war in Gaza. Prior to Israel\u2019s all-out offensive in late September, the militant group had insisted it would only cease near-daily attacks on Israel\u2019s northern-most territories once a ceasefire was achieved in Gaza.<\/p>\n

According to multiple high-level Lebanese officials, Hezbollah had initially agreed to delink the two conflicts the night before its leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli airstrike in late September.<\/p>\n

Mikati said that his government is in contact with US President-elect Donald Trump\u2019s<\/a> team.<\/p>\n

Another Lebanese source familiar with the ceasefire talks told CNN earlier that President-elect Trump has endorsed Hochstein\u2019s ceasefire negotiations track, increasing the chances of its success.<\/p>\n

Israel is \u2018ready to do\u2019 a deal<\/h2>\n

Meanwhile, a senior US official told CNN that there is \u201cno stock\u201d in reports that Israel will try to delay a deal. \u201cThe Israelis have confirmed to us they\u2019re ready to do it,\u201d the source said.<\/p>\n

A deal with Hezbollah would \u201csend a signal to Hamas\u201d that Israel and its partners will do their utmost to secure a deal that brings back hostages held in Gaza, the US official said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we have a Lebanon deal, we\u2019re going to come down like a ton of bricks on Hamas to try to get a hostage deal,\u201d the official said, adding that Israel needs \u201cto turn this military success\u2026 into a strategic success.\u201d<\/p>\n

The US official said that the region was in a deadlock as Hamas refused to strike a ceasefire deal that returns Israeli hostages, and Hezbollah had vowed to keep fighting until Israel\u2019s war against Hamas in Gaza came to an end.<\/p>\n

While the US is not privy to all of Israel\u2019s military plans, the official said, \u201chaving the degradation of Hezbollah helps\u201d to strike an agreement.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo get a deal in Lebanon, Hezbollah has to be put under pressure,\u201d the US official said, adding that \u201cHezbollah cannot rebuild its massive military infrastructure\u201d across the border with Israel.<\/p>\n

The-CNN-Wire
\u2122 & \u00a9 2024 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n

CNN\u2019s Nadeen Ebrahim contributed to this article.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\n

Source: <\/em> politics.einnews.com\u2026<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Tamara Qiblawi, Becky Anderson and Dana Karni, CNN (CNN) \u2014 United States envoy Amos Hochstein is due to visit Beirut \u201cimminently\u201d after Lebanon responded \u201cpositively\u201d to a US-backed proposal to stop the Israel-Hezbollah war, Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati said on Monday. Mikati, speaking to Al Araby TV news channel, said the Lebanese government […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17690\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}