DAILY MAIL | Published November 19, 2024
A US envoy has returned to Beirut, where Lebanese officials have tentatively welcomed a proposal for an Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire, while in the Gaza Strip there was no such optimism, with the looting of nearly 100 aid trucks by armed men worsening an already severe food crisis.
Amos Hochstein, a senior adviser to US President Joe Biden, arrived as Hezbollah’s allies in the Lebanese government said it had responded positively to the proposal, which would entail both the militants and Israeli ground forces withdrawing from a UN buffer zone in southern Lebanon.
It is unclear how close they are to clinching an agreement.
The buffer zone would be policed by thousands of additional UN peacekeepers and Lebanese troops. Israel has called for a stronger enforcement mechanism, potentially including the ability to operate against any Hezbollah threats, something Lebanon is likely to oppose.
Mr Hochstein’s arrival comes hours after an Israeli strike in central Beirut killed five people and wounded others. It was the third Israeli strike in the heart of Beirut in two days.
Since late September, Israel has dramatically escalated its bombardment of Lebanon, vowing to severely weaken Hezbollah and end its rocket barrages into Israel.
Hezbollah began firing rockets, and drawing Israeli retaliation, on October 8 2023, a day after Hamas’s attack on southern Israel ignited the war in Gaza. Both groups are supported by Iran.
The fighting has left more than 3,500 dead in Lebanon and almost 15,000 wounded, according to the Lebanese health ministry.
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SOURCE: www.dailymail.co.uk
RELATED: U.S. envoy says truce in Israel-Hezbollah war ‘within our grasp’; Gaza’s food crisis worsens after looting
Amos Hochstein, a senior adviser to U.S. President Joe Biden, speaks with the media after his meeting with Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, in Beirut, Lebanon, on Nov. 19.Hassan Ammar/The Associated Press
THE GLOBE AND MAIL | Published November 19, 2024
A United States envoy said an agreement to end the Israel-Hezbollah war is “within our grasp” after talks in Lebanon on Tuesday. There was no such optimism in the Gaza Strip, where the looting of nearly 100 aid trucks by armed men worsened an already severe food crisis.
Amos Hochstein, the Biden administration’s pointman on Israel and Lebanon, arrived as Hezbollah’s allies in the Lebanese government said it had responded positively to the proposal, which would entail both the militants and Israeli ground forces withdrawing from a UN buffer zone in southern Lebanon.
The buffer zone would be policed by thousands of additional UN peacekeepers and Lebanese troops. Israel has called for a stronger enforcement mechanism, potentially including the ability to operate against any Hezbollah threats, something Lebanon is likely to oppose.
Hochstein said he held “very constructive talks” with Lebanon’s Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, an ally of Hezbollah who is mediating on the group’s behalf.
“Specifically today, we have continued to significantly narrow the gaps,” he told reporters after the two-hour meeting. “I’m here in Beirut to facilitate that decision-making, but it’s ultimately the decisions of the parties to reach a conclusion to this conflict. … It is now within our grasp.”
In Gaza, meanwhile, the theft of nearly 100 trucks loaded with food and other humanitarian aid over the weekend sent prices soaring and caused shortages in central Gaza, where most of the population of 2.3 million people have fled and where hundreds of thousands are crammed into squalid tent camps.
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