US envoy heads to Beirut as Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire talks gain momentum

By Tamara Qiblawi, Becky Anderson, Dana Karni and Jennifer Hansler, CNN

(CNN) — United States envoy Amos Hochstein is expected in Beirut on Tuesday, according to two Lebanese official sources, in what is seen as a sign of progress in ceasefire negotiations for the deadly cross-border conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The news comes after Beirut responded “positively” to a US-backed proposal to stop the Israel-Hezbollah war, per Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Makati. Speaking to Al Araby TV news channel on Monday, Makati said the Lebanese government had been seeking clarification on some “unclear points” in the ceasefire proposal, but that large parts of the draft agreement were resolved.

Certain points would “clarification” through a “face to face” discussions with Hochstein, he added.

US ambassador to Lebanon Lisa Johnson relayed the proposal to the Lebanese government via Nabih Berri, the parliament speaker, on Thursday night, a Lebanese official told CNN earlier.

According to the official, Hezbollah reviewed the proposal and submitted their response to Lebanese authorities on Sunday evening. The source described the response as largely “positive.”

A source familiar with the situation told CNN that the negotiations on a diplomatic resolution are continuing and noted that Hochstein’s trip does not necessarily signal that a deal is imminent.

What’s in the ceasefire proposal

The US-backed proposal aims to achieve a 60-day cessation of hostilities and is being portrayed as the basis of a lasting ceasefire, according to the Lebanese official, adding that terms lie within the parameters of UN Resolution 1701 which ended the Lebanon-Israel war of 2006. The resolution stipulates that the only armed groups in the area south of Lebanon’s Litani River should be the Lebanese army and UN peacekeeping forces.

The proposal also requires Israeli ground forces, operating in southern Lebanon since late September, to withdraw from the country and demands a stricter enforcement of resolution 1701, according to the Lebanese official.

Both Israel and Lebanon have “reacted” to the proposal, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said Monday.

“We have been sharing proposals, both with the Government of Lebanon and the Government of Israel. Both sides have reacted to the proposals that we have put forward,” he said at a press briefing.

Miller would not say if the US is optimistic about the prospects of reaching an agreement, but noted that “when you have a resolution in the interest of all the relevant parties, we ought to be able to get to an agreement, and that’s what we’re going to try to do.”

“We’re going to continue to stay at that process, because we believe a diplomatic resolution is key to allowing the fighting to stop, to protecting civilians and allowing the civilians in both Israel and Lebanon to return to their homes,” said Miller.

Israeli ‘operational freedom’

An Israeli source familiar with the talks however cast doubt on the likelihood of an imminent deal, noting that while progress has been made, Hezbollah’s refusal to accept Israel’s demand for the right to strike Hezbollah targets in the event of a ceasefire violation could jeopardize the process. Without this clause, the source added, it is uncertain whether Netanyahu can secure cabinet approval for the agreement.

The Israeli source added that Hochstein has not yet confirmed when he will arrive in the region.

Bezalel Smotrich, the far-right Israeli minister of finance, said on Monday that “full operational freedom” for the Israeli military in southern Lebanon is “a non-negotiable condition.”

“At the end of the war, we will have operational freedom in Gaza, and so we will also have operational freedom in Lebanon. We will not agree to any arrangement that is not worth the paper it is written on,” he said. “We are changing the security paradigm and will not return to decades of concepts of containment and threats without response. This will not happen again.”

In his interview with Al Araby TV, Mikati dismissed reports of demands to give the Israeli military operational freedom in south Lebanon as “speculation,” adding that he hasn’t seen such a clause in the proposal.

Berri, who leads the Hezbollah-allied Amal party and is an interlocutor in the talks, told Saudi-owned Asharq Al Awsat newspaper on Friday that the proposal he received from the US does not include mention of Israeli military operational freedom in Lebanon, adding that the US knows that such a demand would be “unacceptable.”

The Lebanese official who spoke to CNN also said the proposal does not refer to Israel’s right to continue striking Lebanon after a truce.

The source also said Hezbollah has agreed to separate its conflict with Israel from Israel’s war in Gaza. Prior to Israel’s all-out offensive in late September, the militant group had insisted it would only cease near-daily attacks on Israel’s northern-most territories once a ceasefire was achieved in Gaza.

According to multiple high-level Lebanese officials, Hezbollah had initially agreed to delink the two conflicts the night before its leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli airstrike in late September.

Mikati said that his government is in contact with US President-elect Donald Trump’s team.

Another Lebanese source familiar with the ceasefire talks told CNN earlier that President-elect Trump has endorsed Hochstein’s ceasefire negotiations track, increasing the chances of its success.

Israel is ‘ready to do’ a deal

Meanwhile, a senior US official told CNN that there is “no stock” in reports that Israel will try to delay a deal. “The Israelis have confirmed to us they’re ready to do it,” the source said.

A deal with Hezbollah would “send a signal to Hamas” that Israel and its partners will do their utmost to secure a deal that brings back hostages held in Gaza, the US official said.

“If we have a Lebanon deal, we’re going to come down like a ton of bricks on Hamas to try to get a hostage deal,” the official said, adding that Israel needs “to turn this military success… into a strategic success.”

The US official said that the region was in a deadlock as Hamas refused to strike a ceasefire deal that returns Israeli hostages, and Hezbollah had vowed to keep fighting until Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza came to an end.

While the US is not privy to all of Israel’s military plans, the official said, “having the degradation of Hezbollah helps” to strike an agreement.

“To get a deal in Lebanon, Hezbollah has to be put under pressure,” the US official said, adding that “Hezbollah cannot rebuild its massive military infrastructure” across the border with Israel.

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CNN’s Nadeen Ebrahim and Jenny Hansler contributed to this article.