BEIRUT: Visiting US envoy Amos Hochstein warned Wednesday the clock was ticking for a Gaza ceasefire that could also help end 10 months of cross-border exchanges between Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Israel.
His Lebanon trip comes a day before ceasefire negotiations between Hamas and Israel are set to resume, with top diplomats scrambling to avert all-out war after Iran and Hezbollah vowed revenge for recent high-profile killings.
Hochstein told a Beirut news conference that he and parliament speaker Nabih Berri, a Hezbollah ally, discussed “the framework agreement that’s on the table for a Gaza ceasefire, and he and I agreed there is no more time to waste and there’s no more valid excuses from any party for any further delay”.
“The deal would also help enable a diplomatic resolution here in Lebanon and that would prevent an outbreak of a wider war,” Hochstein said.
“We have to take advantage of this window for diplomatic action and diplomatic solutions. That time is now,” added the envoy, who in 2022 brokered a maritime border deal between Israel and Lebanon.
As the cross-border violence continued, Lebanon’s health ministry said an “Israeli enemy” strike in Abbassiyeh, near the southern city of Tyre, wounded 17 people, including two teenagers and an eight-year-old girl, with four people in “critical” condition.
Hezbollah said it launched “volleys of Katyusha rockets” at Kiryat Shmona in northern Israel in response to the attack.
Late last month, an Israeli strike killed top Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut’s southern suburbs, a stronghold of the group, just hours before Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in Tehran in an attack blamed on Israel.
Hezbollah and Iran have vowed to retaliate, sending regional tensions soaring.
DIPLOMATIC RESOLUTION ‘ACHIEVABLE’
Hochstein warned that “the more time goes by of escalated tensions… the more the odds and the chances go up for accidents, for mistakes, for inadvertent targets to be hit that could easily cause escalation that gets out of control”.
“Here in Lebanon we believe we can get to (the) end of the conflict now, today. We recognise that there are those who want to tie it to other conflicts. That is not our position,” he added.
“We continue to believe that a diplomatic resolution is achievable because we continue to believe that no one truly wants a full-scale war between Lebanon and Israel,” Hochstein said.
Hezbollah has repeatedly said it would only end hostilities once a Gaza ceasefire deal has been reached.
The US envoy also met Prime Minister Najib Mikati, who warned in a statement that “Israeli intransigence is threatening efforts to stop the war”.
On Tuesday, Lebanon’s pro-Hezbollah newspaper Al-Akhbar published a report headlined “Don’t welcome the Israeli mediator”, accusing Hochstein of providing assurances before Shukr’s killing that Israel would not strike Beirut’s southern suburbs.
