By ABBY SEWELL and TIA GOLDENBERG
BEIRUT (AP) — Diplomats and other officials say there have been several sticking points in ceasefire talks to end the war between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, even as conditions for an agreement appear to be ripe.
Israel’s military has killed nearly all of the militant group’s top leaders, but it continues to fire missiles into Israel. Tens of thousands of Israelis who were evacuated from the border months ago are pressuring their government to go home. And the world wants to stop regional conflict from spreading after more than a year of fighting.
Following the latest visit to the region by a U.S. mediator, Israel hit central Beirut over the weekend, and Hezbollah responded with its biggest barrage in weeks as each applied pressure to reach a deal.
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Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged fire almost daily since the day after Hamas-led terrorists attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, setting off the war in Gaza. Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.
Israel launched a widespread bombardment of Lebanon two months ago, then a ground invasion. More than 3,500 people in Lebanon have been killed, many of them civilians.
More than 70 have been killed in Israel, over 40 of them civilians. In addition, over 50 Israeli soldiers have been killed in the ground offensive.
Here’s a look at the proposal and the sticking points.
A proposed two-month ceasefire to start
The proposal under discussion to end the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah calls for an initial two-month ceasefire during which Israeli forces would withdraw from Lebanon and Hezbollah would end its armed presence along the southern border south of the Litani River.
The withdrawals would be accompanied by an influx of thousands more Lebanese army troops, who have been largely sidelined in the war, to patrol the border area along with an existing U.N. peacekeeping force.
An international committee would be set up to monitor implementation of the ceasefire agreement and of U.N. Security Council resolution 1701, which was passed in 2006 to end a monthlong war between Israel and Hezbollah but never fully implemented. Hezbollah never ended its presence in southern Lebanon, while Lebanon said Israel regularly violated its airspace and occupied small patches of its territory.
It is not clear whether a new deal would be any more successfully implemented than the one in 2006.
Michael Herzog, Israel’s ambassador to Washington, told Israeli Army Radio on Monday that the deal aimed to improve surveillance and enforcement of the previous resolution. While he said there were still certain points that needed to be finalized, a deal was close and could be clinched “within days.”
A U.S. official said negotiations continued to progress on Sunday, but the parties still need to work out some outstanding issues to close the deal. The official, who insisted on anonymity to discuss the private talks, declined to detail the outstanding issues.
Israel wants freedom to strike Hezbollah and other disagreements
Two Western diplomats described several points of dispute to The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss ongoing negotiations.
They said Israel was asking for more guarantees to ensure that Hezbollah’s weapons are removed from the border area. Israeli officials, concerned about the possibility of Hezbollah launching the kind of attack that Hamas carried out from Gaza into southern Israel, have said they would not agree to a ceasefire deal that doesn’t explicitly grant them freedom to strike in Lebanon if they believe Hezbollah is violating it.
An Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to discuss the sensitive talks, said the issue remained a point of contention, although he said the talks were headed in a “positive direction.”
Lebanese officials have said agreeing to such a deal would violate Lebanon’s sovereignty. Hezbollah leader Naim Kassem has said the militant group would not agree to a deal that does not entail a “complete and comprehensive end to the aggression” and does not protect Lebanon’s sovereignty.
Lebanon and Israel have also disagreed over which countries would sit on the international committee overseeing implementation of the deal and Resolution 1701.
In a sign of progress, Israel appeared to have dropped its opposition to France, which has remained close with Lebanon since its colonial rule there ended and has recently been at odds with Israel.
On Monday, an official familiar with the talks, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were discussing behind-the-scenes negotiations, said that France would be part of the monitoring committee. Lebanon’s deputy parliament speaker, Elias Bousaab, also said Israel had accepted France.
But Lebanon has refused to allow Britain, a close ally of Israel. It was unclear Monday if Lebanese officials had dropped their opposition following Israel’s concession.
Meanwhile, Israel does not want to enter into negotiations on 13 disputed points along the border as part of a ceasefire deal, the diplomats said.
Both sides have an interest in ending the war
A ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, the strongest of Iran’s armed proxies, is expected to significantly calm regional tensions that have led to fears of war between Israel and Iran directly. It’s not clear how it would affect the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. Hezbollah had long insisted that it would not agree to a ceasefire until the war in Gaza ends, but it has now dropped that condition.
One diplomat said there are fears that if no ceasefire is reached, the war will expand further into Syria and Iraq as Israel attempts to cut off the supply of weapons from Iran to Hezbollah. Israel has carried out regular airstrikes on Iran-linked groups in Syria and has threatened to strike in Iraq, where Iran-backed militias have periodically launched drone attacks on Israel.
Geir Pedersen, the U.N. special envoy for Syria, said during a visit to Damascus on Sunday that ceasefires in Gaza and Lebanon are critical to “avoid Syria being dragged even further into the conflict.”
Meanwhile, analysts say Hezbollah has been weakened but continues to keep up steady fire into Israel, including strikes far from the border.
On Sunday, Hezbollah fired about 250 rockets and other projectiles into Israel, wounding seven people in one of the militant group’s heaviest barrages in months, in response to deadly Israeli strikes in Beirut. Violent clashes continue in southern Lebanon as Israeli forces attempt to take control of strategic towns.
Israel says its goal in the war with Hezbollah is to enable displaced Israelis to safely return home. In Lebanon, a quarter of the population has been displaced, and parts of the country, particularly in south Lebanon and areas south of the capital Beirut, have been destroyed.
In Lebanon, where officials and residents are anxious for war to end, an initial rush of optimism dissipated after the Biden administration’s point man on Israel and Lebanon, Amos Hochstein, left the region last week without a deal.
Many now believe no agreement will be reached before President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January.
Goldenberg reported from Tel Aviv, Israel. Associated Press writer Aamer Madhani contributed from Washington.
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