Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati said Wednesday evening that he hopes a cease-fire with Israel will be signed " within the coming hours or days." He expressed "cautious" optimism, adding: "We are doing our best." According to him, Hezbollah "was late to sever the connection between the Gaza and Lebanon fronts" and now demands that Lebanese army forces be deployed in the south of the country with the withdrawal of Israeli forces.
Mikati also stated that Lebanon will no longer agree to receive aircraft assistance from Iran or Iraq, after Israel threatened to attack Iranian aircraft transporting military equipment to Beirut. "We don't want to expose Beirut airport to danger," he said. "If Iran or Iraq want to help us it will be via the sea." He added that he is not in contact with any official from Hezbollah, and that he received the message about the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah while he was in treatment in the U.S.
Mikati made the statements after a conversation with President Joe Biden's envoy to Lebanon, Amos Hochstein, who together U.S. Mideast envoy Brett McGurk, is currently traveling to Israel. The two envoys will hold a series of meetings in Israel at a critical point in time, to discuss the overall regional picture. On the agenda is a possible cease-fire in Lebanon, as well as a hostage deal and cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, and the desire to prevent Iran from attacking Israel.
National Security Council spokesman Sean Savett said on Wednesday night of a potential deal for a cease-fire in Lebanon that "there are many reports and drafts circulating. They do not reflect the current state of the negotiations."
The discussions in Israel will focus on three directions. The first is preparations for a possible attack by Iran against Israel in response to the Israeli attack last week. The commander of the U.S. Central Command, General Michael Kurilla will be in Israel over the weekend for talks with senior IDF officials to discuss Israel's defense in the event of an Iranian attack.
Both Israel and the U.S. do not know what Iran will do and think that the issue of the Iranian attack is still open. The Iranians are still in the process of trying to understand what happened in the Israeli attack and are realizing day by day that it was very significant. The more the Iranians understand and internalize that they have something to lose if they attack, the more likely that they will drop the response option. Despite this, no one - neither in Israel nor in the U.S., knows what the Iranians will actually do in the end, but they understand that they must be prepared for every possibility, both defensively and offensively.
The second focus of the discussions will be on Lebanon. In recent weeks, there has been an intensive dialogue between Israel and the United States on the current hostilities. The two countries have reached an agreement on what a cease-fire settlement will look like, how the political outline is shaped, and how to enter into it.
The fact that Hochstein and McGurk are coming to the region indicates that there is an understanding between Israel and the U.S. that they are moving in the direction of the diplomatic path. Despite this, it is important to emphasize that, as far as Israel is concerned, a final agreement with Lebanon has not yet been reached, and the intention is to enter into an accelerated process that will last several weeks until an agreement is reached.
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Amos Hochstein and Benjamin Netanyahu
(Photo: Alex Kolomoisky , AP Hussein Malla/AP, Mohammed Yassin/AFP)
On the other hand, Lebanese Parliament Nabih Berri said that he has reached agreements with Hochstein - and that he expects the American envoy to reach these same agreements with Netanyahu as well. According to him, the agreements are related to the cease-fire, the deployment of the South Lebanese army and the implementation of resolution 1701, without changes. "The ball is now in Netanyahu's court," he said. "If he shows willingness to continue the understandings with Hochstein or turn against them."
In the meantime, the IDF still has time to act in southern Lebanon and complete the dismantling of the terrorist infrastructure. Sources privy to the details say that what is happening now reflects a feeling that the time has come to translate the military achievements into a political path that will soon allow the residents to return to their homes.
In principle, Israel and the US want to work on a mechanism that will be much stronger than Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war and required Lebanese troops to withdraw to south of the Litani River - a mechanism that will never be fully implemented. The intention is also not to base it on UNIFIL, which is worthless and has no weight. In the discussions, there is talk of a significant enforcement mechanism, along with the addition of a principle that gives Israel freedom of action to enforce violations.
Still, Berri claimed Wednesday that "we are not ready to change even one letter in Resolution 1701."
Also on wednesday, the U.S. State Department spokesman said that the U.S. supports Israel's right to go after legitimate Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, when asked about the eastern city of Baalbek being bombarded by Israel. But Matthew Miller told reporters at a regular news briefing that Israel must do so in a way that does not threaten the lives of civilians and it was critical civilian infrastructure and significant cultural heritage sites can be protected.
"We have made clear that the campaign they are conducting in Lebanon should not, cannot, must not look like the campaign that they have conducted in Gaza. We do not want to see that type of widespread damage," Miller said when asked about Baalbek at a regular news briefing.
IDF forces blow up the village of al-Matmoura in southern Lebanon
The third discussion is about the kidnap deal. The talks for a cease-fire in Lebanon are not really related to the hostages, but there is an indirect connection. In Israel there is a belief that the talks on Lebanon can advance a hostage deal, because Hamas has been betting that a regional war will break out and stop Israel in Gaza.
A hostage deal with Hamas in Gaza that would come with a temporary cease-fire would help reach a settlement in Lebanon, but now Lebanon no longer ties itself to Gaza and an agreement with it could help reach an agreement in the south.
Behind the scenes there is also a U.S. preoccupation with the humanitarian issue in Gaza, while in the background there is disappointment among the Americans about the legislation in the Knesset against the UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA. The Americans understand that UNRWA is a failed and rotten organization, but their fear is that it will harm the humanitarian effort.
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