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Israeli officials say a deal to end the fighting with Hizbollah could be finalised “within days”, as US diplomats work to broker a ceasefire agreement that would end more than a year of conflict between Israel and the Lebanese militant group.
Israel’s ambassador to Washington Mike Herzog told Israeli army radio on Monday that Israel was “close to a deal”.
“We still need to finalise a few points, and it still requires the approval of the cabinet on our end,” he said. “But I think we’ve made progress . . . It could happen within days.”
A person familiar with Israeli government deliberations said a deal could be reached soon and that there was “huge positive momentum”.
The proposed agreement would call for an initial 60-day ceasefire, two Lebanese officials said, during which the Israeli military would withdraw from Lebanon and Hizbollah would move its weapons north of the Litani river, which runs 30km from the UN-drawn border.
The deal would be based on UN Security Council resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 Israel-Hizbollah war but was never fully implemented nor enforced.
The Lebanese officials added that they understood the deal was awaiting approval from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet, though the person familiar with Israeli government deliberations said US envoy Amos Hochstein would still need to take some minor “reservations” back to Beirut for approval.
Oil prices fell on expectations that a deal was close. Brent crude was down 1.5 per cent at $74.09 a barrel on Monday afternoon.
Hochstein has spent months shuttling between the two countries in a bid to broker a ceasefire deal, including last week. Dan Shapiro, a senior US defence official, has been in Israel since Saturday working on the military dimensions of a possible ceasefire in Lebanon.
According to the terms of the proposal, the Lebanese Armed Forces, with support from UN peacekeeping body Unifil, would take control of the areas in southern Lebanon vacated by Israeli troops and Hizbollah fighters.
A person familiar with the ongoing talks said that such a plan would probably proceed “sequentially”, with the Israel Defense Forces leaving southern Lebanon as the LAF entered.
Hizbollah began firing on northern Israel in the days after Hamas’s October 7 2023 attack from Gaza, sparking more than a year of tit-for-tat cross-border fire with Israel.
The war escalated in late September when Israel began an intensive air campaign, killing much of Hizbollah’s senior leadership, including leader Hassan Nasrallah, and launched a ground invasion of southern Lebanon.
Lebanese health authorities say more than 3,750 people have been killed in Israeli strikes, the vast majority over the past eight weeks. More than 140 Israeli civilians and soldiers have been killed by Hizbollah fire in northern Israel and during the military campaign.
According to four people familiar with the talks, one point of contention being resolved involves the make-up of the international committee responsible for monitoring the ceasefire’s implementation.
Lebanon has agreed that the US and France will be part of the monitoring mechanism, along with the Lebanese army, Israeli military and Unifil, officials said, though it remains unclear whether an additional European and Arab state will also be included.
Israel on Monday acquiesced to a French role after a diplomatic spat with Paris over the recent arrest warrant issued against Netanyahu at the International Criminal Court, said the person familiar with Israeli deliberations.
Another major point of difference has been Israel’s demand to enforce militarily any violations of the deal by Hizbollah.
Herzog confirmed on Monday that if the proposed agreement broke down and “violations . . . aren’t enforced on the Lebanese side”, then Israel “reserves the right of action and freedom of action” inside Lebanon.
But it is unclear whether Israel is still insisting on a written letter from Washington that would safeguard Israel’s right to attack Lebanon if it is threatened by Hizbollah, which was previously considered a core demand.
Lebanese officials downplayed the prospect of an additional deal between Israel and the US. One denied that such a “side letter” existed, arguing that an agreement to support Israel’s right to self-defence would not be necessary anyway: “Do you doubt the commitments from the US to Israel?”
Fighting has intensified in recent days in parallel to the negotiations, with Hizbollah militants and Israeli troops clashing in the villages of southern Lebanon, air strikes pounding areas where Hizbollah dominates across the country, and even in central Beirut.
Israeli jets struck the neighbourhood of Basta early on Saturday, killing at least 15 people, according to Lebanese health authorities, and on Sunday struck at least a dozen targets in the city’s Dahiyeh neighbourhood, which the Israeli military termed Hizbollah “command and control centres”. The Iran-backed group launched more than 250 rockets and missiles at Israel on Sunday, in one of the heaviest days of incoming fire from Lebanon since the start of the war.