Who will press the stop button? Lebanon is studying an American proposal for a truce in the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel, Lebanese officials said on Friday, November 15, at a time when Palestinian Hamas said it was ready for a ceasefire in the Strip. Gaza with the Israeli army. Since the start of the war in Gaza, triggered on October 7, 2023 by an attack of unprecedented scale by Hamas on Israeli soil, multiple diplomatic initiatives have not resulted in a ceasefire. Each time, the same pattern: the Palestinian Islamist movement and the Jewish state accuse each other of blocking any agreement.
Meanwhile, the conflict has spread across the region. Hezbollah opened a front in October 2023 against Israel in support of its Palestinian ally, and after a year of cross-border firefights in southern Lebanon, the powerful Islamist movement and the Israeli army went to war on September 23 .
Since Tuesday, November 12, the Israeli army has carried out, during the day, several series of bombings against the neighborhoods of the southern suburbs of Beirut, largely emptied of its inhabitants. This Saturday, November 16, new airstrikes reached the Hezbollah stronghold. In total, more than 3,440 people have died in Lebanon since September 23, the majority civilians according to the Ministry of Health. Israel has only one objective: to neutralize the pro-Iranian movement in the border regions of southern Lebanon to allow the return home of some 60,000 inhabitants of the north of the country displaced by Hezbollah fire. “The worsening conflict comes despite what appear to be growing efforts to reach a diplomatic settlement,” notes the New York Times.
“Progress”
Indeed, a senior Lebanese official told AFP that the American ambassador to Beirut, Lisa Johnson, had presented to the Prime Minister, Najib Mikati, and to the head of Parliament, Nabih Berri, a thirteen-point plan which notably provides for a 60-day truce and the deployment of the army in southern Lebanon, on the border with Israel. A second Lebanese government source confirmed that a proposal was under consideration. “Nabih Berri asked for a three-day delay,” said the first official, adding that Israel had not yet provided a response. On Monday, November 11, there was hope with the words of the new Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs, Gideon Saar, affirming that there was “progress”.
Except that this position was quickly contradicted by his predecessor, Israel Katz, appointed Minister of Defense last week. The next day, in an online post, he wrote: “In Lebanon, there will be no ceasefire and there will be no respite.” However, the American daily The Washington Post believes that Israel may want to offer peace in the Middle East to the new US President Donald Trump, who has made it a campaign argument. “It is understood that Israel would offer something to Trump…And that in January there will be an agreement on Lebanon,” an Israeli official told the Washington Poston condition of anonymity.
“A serious agreement for an exchange of prisoners”
For its part, Hamas is ready to reach a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip “in case a proposal is presented and on condition that (Israel) respects it”, assured AFP a member of his political office, Bassem Naïm, by calling on “the American administration and Trump to put pressure on the Israeli government to stop the aggression” in Gaza. Bassem Naïm reaffirmed that Hamas wanted a “serious agreement for an exchange of Palestinian prisoners” held by Israel for hostages taken to Gaza on October 7, 2023.
During the Hamas attack, which resulted in the death of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data including hostages killed or died in captivity, 251 people were kidnapped on Israeli soil. A total of 97 hostages remain in Gaza, 34 of whom were declared dead by the army.