Israel deeply skeptical that US-French effort to craft a temporary ceasefire to halt the escalating conflict can succeed; IDF chief says preparations for ground op in full swing
Emanuel Fabian,
ToI Staff and AgenciesToday, 11:33 pm
US President Joe Biden said Wednesday that fighting between Israel and Hezbollah threatens to become an “all-out war” as diplomats worked behind the scenes to fashion a temporary ceasefire to halt the escalating conflict.
An Israeli official said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had given the “green light” to pursue a possible deal, but only if it includes the return of Israeli civilians to their homes. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were discussing behind-the-scenes diplomacy.
However, Israeli officials were deeply pessimistic that efforts for a temporary halt to fighting in Lebanon to facilitate ceasefire talks would work and IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said the military was preparing for a ground offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon, telling a group of soldiers that their “military boots will enter enemy territory.”
The military also announced the call-up of two further reserve brigades to bolster the northern front.
“An all-out war is possible, but I think there’s also the opportunity – we’re still in play to have a settlement that can fundamentally change the whole region,” Biden said in an appearance on ABC’s “The View.”
Biden suggested that getting Israel and Hezbollah to agree to a ceasefire could help achieve a cessation of hostilities between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
“It’s possible and I’m using every bit of energy I have with my team … to get this done,” he said. “There’s a desire to see change in the region.”
Diplomacy at the UNGA
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the US administration was “intensely engaged with a number of partners to de-escalate tensions in Lebanon and to work to get a ceasefire agreement that would have so many benefits for all concerned.”
Blinken said the plan aimed to de-escalate tensions and allow tens of thousands of Israelis and Lebanese to return to homes they have had to evacuate in border areas.
“The best way to get that is not through war, not through escalation,” he said in an interview with NBC News.
“It would be through a diplomatic agreement that has forces pulled back from the border, create a secure environment, people return home,” Blinken said. “That’s what we’re driving toward because while there’s a very legitimate issue here, we don’t think that war is the solution.”
A US official told the Times of Israel that “we are in active discussions with Israelis as well as other countries to try to secure a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.”
France has called a special UN Security Council meeting on Lebanon for later Wednesday at which some of those ideas may be discussed.
“What we’re focused on now, including with many partners here in New York at the UN General Assembly, the Arab world, Europeans and others, is a plan to de-escalate,” Blinken said.
“If there were to be a full-scale war – which we don’t have and which we’re working to avoid – that’s actually not going to solve the problem,” Blinken said.
Blinken and other US officials have spent the past three days at and on the sidelines of the annual UN General Assembly meeting of world leaders in New York lobbying other countries to support the plan, which they hope could lead to longer-term stability along the border, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic conversations.
However, they said the specifics of the proposal were not yet complete.
Source familiar with the talks told the Reuters news agency that France, which has influence in Lebanon, was involved in crafting the initiative.
The US and France were spearheading the new diplomatic effort to end hostilities in both Gaza and Lebanon, linking the two conflicts as part of a single initiative, six sources familiar with the initiative told Reuters.
However, a source familiar with the talks said that reports that the US was trying to link ceasefires in Lebanon and Gaza was inaccurate.
“Hezbollah has conditioned a ceasefire along the Blue Line on the war in Gaza, and it has previously tied its fate and the fate of the people of Lebanon to [Hamas leader Yahya] Sinwar, but our efforts right now are to de-link the two,” the source tells the Times of Israel.
Meanwhile, Iran was working directly with Hezbollah in an attempt to prevent the escalation from turning into an all-out war, the Ynet news site reported, adding that Tehran preferred to avoid an all out war.
A package
The report says Netanyahu and Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer spoke with Washington, which was holding talks with Lebanon’s government and other official acting as intermediaries with Hezbollah.
A Lebanese official and a source familiar with Hezbollah’s thinking told Reuters that Hezbollah was “open to any settlement that would include both Gaza and Lebanon.”
A second Lebanese official said that it would be “impossible” to stop the conflicts without putting together “a package.”
Israeli officials told Reuters that no significant process had been made so far.
“We are nearing a fork in the road for decisions on where the war is going,” an unnamed Israeli official told Ynet.
Reports by The Wall Street Journal and Channel 12 news said the basic idea being negotiated was a halt of up to four weeks, during which negotiations would be held for a ceasefire in Lebanon and in Gaza.
Channel 12 also said Hamas would also announce it was holding fire, while IDF forces would remain in Gaza but not invade Lebanon. The network said talks would then focus on upgrading Security Council Resolution 1701 to better enforce a ceasefire and guarantee Hezbollah move away from the border and beyond the Litani river.
Israel skeptical
But while Netanyahu was said to have green-lit the talks, he was seemingly unwilling to ease up the recent strikes on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, telling ministers at a security meeting on Wednesday that “negotiations will only take place under fire, we’re continuing to fire at Hezbollah in full force,” according to the Kan public broadcaster.
The source also said Netanyahu had green-lit the talks partially “for international legitimacy for Israel’s current military activity in Lebanon.”
In a video statement on Wednesday evening, Netanyahu also told the Israeli public, “We are determined to return our residents [from the north] home safely,” through means that he said he could not elaborate on.
“We are landing blows on Hezbollah that it never imagined,” he said. “We are doing it with strength, we are doing it with ruses. I can promise you one thing — we will not rest until they return home.”
Israel was also deeply skeptical that any meaningful deal could be put together.
Channel 13 news quotes an unnamed senior Israel official as saying there was “no feasibility for a settlement right now,” and that “Israel is prepared to hear suggestions, but the chances for an agreement are slim.”
The Ynet news site quoted an associate of Netanyahu as saying that in practice, “there are no negotiations,” and adding that the “red line for the prime minister and Minister Dermer is pushing Hezbollah across the Litani.”
Build up of forces
The talks came as Israel continued to launch hundreds of strikes against Hezbollah targets and warned that a ground offensive was looming.
IDF chief Halevi told soldiers they would likely soon find themselves in Lebanon.
“You can hear the jets above, we are attacking all day. Both to prepare the area for the possibility of your entry [into Lebanon], and also to continue causing blows to Hezbollah,” Halevi told troops of the 7th Armored Brigade during a drill simulating a ground offensive in Lebanon.
“Hezbollah today expanded its [range] of fire. Later today, it will receive a very strong response,” he vowed, after the terror group fired a missile at central Israel this morning.
“Today we will continue, we do not stop, we continue to attack and continue to strike them everywhere. The goal is a very clear goal, to return the [displaced] residents of the north safely,” Halevi continued.
“To do this, we are preparing the [ground] maneuver,” he said to the soldiers.
“Your military boots,” Halevi said , “will enter enemy territory, enter villages that Hezbollah has prepared as large military outposts, with underground infrastructure, staging points, and launchpads into our territory [from which Hezbollah intends] to carry out attacks on Israeli civilians.
“Your entry into those areas with force, your encounter with Hezbollah operatives, will show them what it means to face a professional, highly skilled, and battle-experienced force,” he went on. “You are coming in much stronger and far more experienced than they are. You will go in, destroy the enemy there, and decisively destroy their infrastructure. These are the things that will enable us to safely return the residents of the north afterward.”
The IDF also said it was calling up two reserve brigades to be deployed to northern Israel.
The military said the move, made following a fresh assessment, “will allow the continuation of the fighting effort against the Hezbollah terror organization, the protection of the citizens of the State of Israel, and the creation of the conditions for the safe return of the [displaced] residents of the north to their homes.”
Tensions between Israel and Hezbollah have escalated in the last week following two waves of explosions of the terror group’s members’ communication devices. Hezbollah blamed the attack on Israel, which has not taken responsibility for the explosions but has since stepped up strikes on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon that have killed the majority of the organization’s top command network.
War has been ongoing in Gaza for the past year since Hamas’s October 7 attack in which terrorists murdered some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 hostages.
Meanwhile, since October 8, Hezbollah-led forces have attacked Israeli communities and military posts along the border on a near-daily basis, with the group saying it is doing so to support Gaza amid the war there.
So far, the skirmishes have resulted in 26 civilian deaths on the Israeli side, as well as the deaths of 22 IDF soldiers and reservists. There have also been several attacks from Syria, without any injuries.
Hezbollah has named 512 members who have been killed by Israel during the ongoing skirmishes, mostly in Lebanon but some also in Syria. Another 88 operatives from other terror groups, a Lebanese soldier, and dozens of civilians have also been killed.
Hundreds more have been killed and thousands wounded in Lebanon in recent days as Israel lauched waves of strikes on Hezbollah postions, many of them inside civilain homes. there has been no differentiation in the figures between Hezbollah operatives and civilians.
Content retrieved from: https://www.timesofisrael.com/biden-says-all-out-middle-east-war-possible-as-netanyahu-greenlights-truce-talks/?utm_source=article_hpsidebar&utm_medium=desktop_site&utm_campaign=liveblog-september-26-2024.
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