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The US has proposed a ceasefire deal between Hezbollah and Israel that includes an initial 60-day truce when Israeli troops would be withdrawn and the Lebanese army moved south, according to a draft seen by The National.
The proposal, which suggests assigning a US Central Command official to oversee its enforcement, allows Israel to continue operations in Lebanese airspace and act against perceived threats, making it difficult for Beirut to approve.
Two Lebanese officials and a source close to Hezbollah confirmed details of the proposal but said that the outcome remains uncertain.
Negotiations are likely to stall as Lebanon is insisting on implementing UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 war, without any changes, the sources said.
The day after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7 last year, Hezbollah began bombing Israel from Lebanon in support of its ally in Gaza. It began nearly a year of retaliatory attacks before Israel launched a ground invasion last month alongside an air assault, escalating the scale of violence and destruction.
Many of Hezbollah’s leaders have been killed, including long-time chief Hassan Nasrallah, and parts of the group's infrastructure and missile arsenal have been destroyed. The attacks have killed more than 2,100 people since late September, according to Lebanese health officials.
This month, Hezbollah backed a ceasefire with Israel without linking it to a truce in Gaza for the first time since the war began, which was a significant shift in the group's stance.
The ceasefire being negotiated has three main elements: details of a cessation of hostilities; a mechanism to implement the provisions and resolution 1701 and Israel being allowed to act against perceived threats inside Lebanon, according to the document seen by The National.
Resolution 1701 was agreed on to end the 2006 war, but it has never been fully implemented. It said that only the Lebanese army and a UN peacekeeping force, Unifil, should be stationed in southern Lebanon near the border with Israel. But Hezbollah has maintained a military presence there and Israel has regularly violated Lebanese airspace.
Senior Lebanese officials have said they want to put the resolution into effect, but Israel has suggested the terms are no longer tenable.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters that Washington's diplomatic efforts had made "good progress", while Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin said the US was "hopeful that we can we see things transition in Lebanon, in a not too distant future".
Withdrawal and deployment
The ceasefire proposal suggests a 60-day truce during which Israel would withdraw its troops from southern Lebanon within seven days in a “phased manner”, coinciding with Beirut deploying its troops to the border.
Lebanon would increase its troop numbers in the south to 10,000 and the government would instruct security forces, including the army, to “monitor and enforce measures preventing unregulated entry of arms and related materials into Lebanon, including through all border crossings”.
“The United States intends to work with the international community to support the Lebanese Armed Forces as appropriate, to achieve such an increase in its deployment levels in Lebanon and to improve its capabilities,” the document said.
The Lebanese army would also “monitor and enforce any unregulated facilities involved in the production of arms and related material, dismantle all existing such facilities”, and “dismantle all infrastructure inconsistent with these commitments and confiscate all unregulated arms”, it said.
To implement this, Israel, Lebanon and the US will develop and establish an “independent monitoring and enforcement mechanism”.
The US will chair the process and it will include permanent representatives and regional countries approved by both Israel and Lebanon.
“As described in the commitments, the United States is prepared to share the independent monitoring and enforcement mechanism and to designate a senior officer of US Central Command and a senior national security official to serve in that role,” the document said.
Israel and Lebanon will report any alleged violations of the commitments to the mechanism group and Unifil. The mechanism group will then consult with Israel and Lebanon on reported violations, “conduct additional investigation or information gathering as appropriate and advance the resolution of alleged violations within a reasonable time period”.
The mechanism group will also “develop procedures and measures, including the inspection or other measures as appropriate, to recommend for action by participating members in order to verify and enforce compliance with the commitments”.
It will also be prepared “to impose consequences for violations, including by imposing financial sanctions and incentives and diplomatic measures as appropriate in order to advance the implementation of the cessation of hostilities and related commitments”.
Imminent threats
While the main elements of the proposal are a 60-day truce followed by a permanent ceasefire, it includes provisions that grant Israel the freedom to act inside Lebanon.
“Israel has an inherent right to defend itself consistent with international law and maintain security along its northern border, including taking action against imminent threats to Israel's security,” the document said.
“Israel retains the right to act in self-defence against imminent threats,” it added. Such threats “include the production, storage or transportation of heavy weaponry, ballistic medium and long-range missiles and other advanced weaponry”, it said.
The proposal also gives Israel the right to violate Lebanese air space “for the purpose of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance only, and will not be visible to the naked eye to the degree possible”.
“Israeli flights will not break the sound barrier to the civilian population of Lebanon,” the document said.
A Lebanese parliamentary source close to the negotiations acknowledged the existence of the proposal but said that what Lebanese officials had agreed on with US envoy Amos Hochstein last week was “an action plan and road map to implement a permanent ceasefire and full implementation of 1701".
“Whether that road map is agreed upon is now up to Israel,” the source said, but any plan that went beyond the implementation of UN Resolution 1701 was unlikely to get support from Lebanese officials.
Mr Hochstein is expected in Beirut this week to deliver Israel’s response to the proposal.
“They [the Israelis] want more than 1701, and we see 1701 as enough – its implementation is enough to bring stability back and for people to return to their homes,” the Lebanese source said.
“We are not studying anything,” the source said with regard to the circulating draft proposal. “We know what we want and we agreed with him on what we want.”
Another Lebanese political source told The National that leaking the document “may be an attempt to either pressure Lebanon to force it to accept, or an attempt to raise the ceiling of conditions in a way that embarrasses Lebanon and pushes it to refuse to agree to them, which will allow the Israeli government to tell the US administration that it has agreed to a truce, but the Lebanese refused, and so it has the right to proceed with the war”.
A source close to Hezbollah said that the items proposed in the leaked draft “fully reflect and adopt Israel's position”, insisting that the Iran-backed group has no problem with resolution 1701. The proposal does not address any procedure or mechanism to deal with Israeli violations in the future, the source added.
“It stipulates Israel's right to intervene to deal with any threat or violation it sees near its borders, unless it is quickly addressed by the Lebanese army and the Unifil forces. That is why there is an item in the document that talks about the United States' recognition of the right to self-defence, but in return it does not refer to a similar right for Lebanon,” the source said.
