Sources: Lebanon-Israel meeting in Washington to extend ceasefire without securing halt in Israeli attacks on south
Israel and Lebanon are preparing to announce the start of an “extended political process,” under United States sponsorship, that will pave the way for direct consultations between the two countries, according to a regional diplomat informed of US-Lebanese contacts over the Israeli-Lebanese negotiations due to take place in Washington on Thursday and Friday.
The announcement will be part of a statement that is currently being drafted, the diplomat told Mada Masr. The statement will also announce an extension of the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire, which is due to expire in the early hours of Sunday, the diplomat added.
The expiration of the ceasefire was meant to line up with a floated meeting between Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
However, in comments earlier this month, Aoun, under significant pressure to forgo any such meeting, said that the “timing is not right for a meeting now” with Netanyahu and that “a security agreement and a halt in Israeli attacks” must be secured first.
Nonetheless, both sides are stepping up their representation at the Washington meeting, according to the regional diplomat.
Both delegations are being expanded to include military officials. The Lebanese delegation will be led by Simon Karam, a Maronite lawyer who served as an ambassador to the US in the early 1990s, while the Israeli side will be headed by a member of Israel’s National Security Council, the diplomat said.
The formal announcement of an extension of the ceasefire, according to the diplomat and another former diplomat informed of the details of the Israeli-Lebanese negotiations, will not be derailed by the escalation in recent days of Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon “unless a major catastrophe occurs,” as the second source put it.
Both sources agree that the Lebanese president and government are strongly determined to move forward with the negotiating track despite the continuing Israeli attacks. They added that there is significant regional and international backing for this stance, including from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, France and Qatar.
Hezbollah, meanwhile, remains firm in rejecting negotiations before a halt to Israeli military operations, which have persisted since the ceasefire was announced on April 16 for an initial ten days and later extended by three weeks.
Over the past two days, Israel has expanded its military activity in southern Lebanon, announcing on May 12 what it described as a ground operation near the town of Zawtar al-Sharqiyeh north of the Litani River and releasing footage showing troops positioned along the river between Zawtar and Deir Siryan. Israeli media reports also claimed engineering operations in the Litani area that could facilitate future movement of armored and infantry units. At the same time, Israel widened evacuation warnings across parts of the western Beqaa and southern Lebanon, issuing early-morning alerts to residents of Sohmor, followed by additional evacuation orders for several towns in the Sur and Nabatieh districts, including Arzoun, Tyr Debba, Bazourieh, Hosh and others, instructing civilians to move at least one km away.
On May 13, Israeli airstrikes hit four vehicles on the road between Beirut and Saida, killing nine people, including two children, according to the Public Health Ministry. Earlier in the day, further evacuation warnings were issued for additional villages in southern Lebanon including Kfar Hatta, Deir Zahrany and Arab Salim. In parallel, Hezbollah announced a series of retaliatory operations, including targeting an Israeli troop carrier in Bint Jbeil with a drone and detonating an explosive device against Israeli forces advancing from the direction of Rshaf toward the outskirts of Hadatha in the central sector, confirming direct hits. It also reported additional strikes in the coastal sector near Blat. In a separate statement, the group said that on May 12 it targeted an Israeli Merkava tank near the Kherbet al-Manara Israeli site along the southern Lebanese border using a suicide drone.
In parallel, Hezbollah announced a series of retaliatory operations, including targeting an Israeli troop carrier in Bint Jbeil with a drone, and detonating an explosive device against Israeli forces advancing from the direction of Rshaf toward the outskirts of Hadatha in the central sector, confirming direct hits. It also stated it had carried out additional strikes in the coastal sector near Blat. In a separate statement, the group said that on May 12 it targeted an Israeli Merkava tank near the Khirbet al-Manara Israeli site along the southern Lebanese border using a suicide drone.
Since the start of the ceasefire, Israeli airstrikes have killed around 400 Lebanese people, nearly a third of them women and children.
According to an Egyptian diplomat, Israel has told both Beirut and Washington that its actions do not constitute a breach of the ceasefire, maintaining that the agreement allows it to carry out operations against what it views as Hezbollah threats.
The three sources said Israel had informed the US, as well as the Lebanese president and government, from an early stage that it had no intention of halting operations against Hezbollah or moving toward a gradual withdrawal before the group is disarmed.
According to the first and second sources, the Lebanese president and government told Nabih Berri, the parliamentary speaker in contact with Hezbollah, that the delegation heading to Washington would seek an Israeli pledge to scale back the pace and intensity of military operations and airstrikes.
The second source added that the Lebanese government informed Washington it would be difficult to talk about any proposals related to Hezbollah’s disarmament, unless the US takes concrete steps to pressure Israel into ending airstrikes and ground operations and considering withdrawal, even if a gradual one.
Two days before the start of the Washington talks, Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem said that the group does not see that its weapons belong on the Israeli-Lebanese negotiation table. In a statement carried by Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV, Qassem stressed that the group’s arms are a purely internal matter.
The three sources said they do not expect the Israeli-Lebanese talks to be influenced by the heated back-and-forth between Tehran and Washington over a possible framework of understanding to formally end the US-Israeli war on Iran and fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz, effectively shut since the outbreak of the war on February 28.
“The US-Iran track is certainly not far removed from the Lebanese-Israeli track under American sponsorship,” the first source said. “But the second track is still in its early stages and absolutely no one expects the Washington round on Thursday and Friday to yield more than an extension of the ceasefire and an agreement to keep negotiating.”
In a statement issued Tuesday, the US State Department said the third round is aimed at “advancing a comprehensive peace and security agreement that substantively addresses the core concerns of both countries.”
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المصدر: Mada Masr