US special envoy Amos Hochstein is in the region to hold talks with Israel and Lebanese officials about an IDF-Hezbollah ceasefire based on United Security Council resolution 1701, which set the ceasefire terms that ended the Second Lebanon war in 2006.
“We’re going to have a substantive conversation with the government of Lebanon [and] with the government of Israel about how best to bring about a cessation of hostilities to end this conflict,” Hochstein told reporters at a press event in Beirut. He said that Lebanon and Israel just committing to UN resolution 1701 was not enough and that the United States was working to devise a formula to end the conflict once and for all.
He spoke more than a year into the IDF-Hezbollah war, which has escalated in the last month to include an IDF ground invasion into southern Lebanon and intensive Israeli aerial strikes against Hezbollah targets in Beirut.
“This is my sixth, or maybe seventh visit to Lebanon in the past year,” Hochstein said.
“While we spent 11 months containing the conflict, we were not able to resolve it. In each of my visits, I cautioned that the situation was urgent and the status quo was not sustainable. We were either going to reach a solution or things are going to escalate out of control,” the special envoy said.
He recalled that on past visits he had cautioned about the urgency of resolving the situation, noting that options to resolve the conflict had been rejected.
Conflict needs immediate resolution, Hochstein says
Now, he said, “the situation has escalated out of control, as we feared that it could.”
He stressed the importance of not tying the IDF-Hezbollah war to other conflicts in the region, alluding to the larger Israeli-Iranian one, or the Israeli-Hamas war in Gaza.
Hezbollah had initially said it would only consider a ceasefire with Israel once one was reached in Gaza. Israel had initially sought to separate those two fronts but has recently considered whether an overall deal with Iran and Hezbollah that included Gaza could be a way to pressure Hamas into releasing the 101 hostages it holds in the enclave.
“I want to be very, very clear,” Hochstein said, stressing that “tying Lebanon’s future to other conflicts in the region was not and is not in the interest of the Lebanese people.”
He underscored the importance of Resolution 1701, which bans non-state actors such as the Iranian proxy group Hezbollah from operating in southern Lebanon next to the Israeli border. The resolution seeks to strengthen the Lebanese Army by insisting that it is the only armed force that can operate in that border area.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will be in the region from Monday through Friday and is also expected to place an IDF-Hezbollah ceasefire on his agenda. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to meet with him today.
“The Secretary will also discuss the need to reach a diplomatic resolution to the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah that fully implements UN Security Council Resolution 1701 and allows civilians on both sides of the Blue Line to return to their homes,” the State Department said.
Israel has also insisted that 1701 must be implemented, but wants to see a plan for how that would actually happen. Israel has told the international community that it respects the role of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) in monitoring compliance with Resolution 1701, but said it needs additional help from outside sources in fulfilling that role. Looking forward, Israel would want to see UNIFIL work together with the Lebanese Army to help ensure compliance with the resolution.
It has long been argued that the international community, including the United Nations peacekeeping force, has not taken implementation seriously.
Hochstein told reporters as much when he spoke to them in Beirut on Monday.
UNSC resolution 1701 “was successful at ending the [Second Lebanon] war in 2006, but we must be honest that no one did anything to implement it,” he said.
“There is no one who can look at the last 18 years and say that anyone did anything to implement 1701,” he explained. “The lack of implementation over those years contributed to the conflict that we are in today. That must change, because both sides simply committing to 1701 is just not enough,” Hochstein said.
He indicated that among those who must commit to strengthening the Lebanese army and weakening Hezbollah was the Lebanese government itself.
“I’m back here in Beirut today for discussions with the government of Lebanon, Lebanese armed forces, other political leaders, and frankly, anyone else who is willing [and] able to play a critical role in setting Lebanon on a new course of strength, security, and stability, and ultimately, economic prosperity,” he said.
The global community must support Lebanon in this endeavor, Hochstein said.
“The government of Lebanon and all its leaders will need the world’s support, and the United States and our partners are committed to supporting them.
“Lebanon’s government can and should provide for all of the people of Lebanon – and to do that effectively, it will need to put its people’s needs first. The world will stand by Lebanon and its leaders if they make the brave and the hard choices that are required at this time to benefit all of the Lebanese people,” he said.
“We’re committed to the Lebanese people, and we are committed to Lebanon’s future, and that’s what I was here to talk about today.”
For any ceasefire to work, both the Lebanese and the Israelis need to know that Resolution 1701 will be fully implemented.
What needs to happen here, is not an agreement that a ceasefire would be based on Resolution 1701, but an agreement on what details should be in place to implement it.
The question is “what are the things that will have to be done in addition in order to make sure that it’s implemented fairly accurately, transparently, so that everybody knows the path that we’re on,” Hochstein said.
The United States, the international community, and the people in the region need to know that this time around the ceasefire will hold and that there is not going to be another round of conflict in the coming months or years, he said.
French President Emmanuel Macron, in a phone call with Netanyahu on Monday, requested that Israel protect civilians and infrastructure in Lebanon, and bring about a ceasefire as soon as possible. He also denounced the attacks on UNIFIL bases, and expressed his desire to allow the forces to fulfill their role in southern Lebanon.
Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit said on Monday in Beirut that the league’s priority was to achieve an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon, and he called for Israel’s prompt withdrawal from any Lebanese territories it has occupied or entered.
Aboul Gheit was also asked if Hezbollah could be destroyed, to which he replied: “You cannot destroy an idea.”