US working on 60-day truce to end war in Lebanon, sources say

BEIRUT/JERUSALEM: U.S. mediators are working on a proposal to wind down hostilities between Israel's military and Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, beginning with a 60-day ceasefire, two sources with knowledge of the talks told Reuters on Wednesday.

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Talks are underway to implement a 60-day truce as a step toward enforcing UN Resolution 1701.
Israel is pushing for a strengthened version of the resolution, allowing military action if Hezbollah violates the truce.
US envoys are meeting Israeli leaders to finalise the deal, hoping to secure a ceasefire in Lebanon amid parallel efforts in Gaza.

The sources - a person briefed on the talks and a senior diplomat working on Lebanon - said the two-month period would be used to finalise full implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, adopted in 2006 to keep southern Lebanon free of arms that do not belong to the Lebanese state.

The U.S. Embassy in Lebanon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Resolution 1701 has been the cornerstone of talks to end the last year of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, which erupted in parallel with the war in Gaza and has dramatically escalated over the last five weeks.

U.S. presidential envoy Amos Hochstein, who is working on the new proposal, told reporters in Beirut earlier this month that better mechanisms for enforcement were needed as neither Israel nor Lebanon had fully implemented the resolution.

The senior diplomat and the source briefed on the talks told Reuters that the 60-day truce has replaced a proposal last month by the United States and other countries that envisioned a ceasefire for 21 days as a prelude to 1701 coming into full force.

Both, however, cautioned that the deal could still fall through. "There is an earnest push to get to a ceasefire, but it is still hard to get it to materialize," the diplomat said.

The person briefed on the talks said one element Israel was still pushing for was the ability to carry out "direct enforcement" of the truce via air strikes or other military operations against Hezbollah if it was violating the deal.

Israel's Channel 12 television reported that Israel was seeking a reinforced version of U.N. Resolution 1701, to allow Israel to intervene if it felt its security threatened.

Lebanon had not yet been formally briefed on the proposal and could not comment on its details, Lebanese officials said.

The push for a ceasefire for Lebanon comes days before the U.S. presidential election and in parallel with a similar diplomatic drive on Gaza.

Axios reported that Hochstein and U.S. presidential adviser Brett McGurk will land in Israel on Thursday to try to close the deal on Lebanon, which could be implemented within weeks, according to three unnamed sources.

Hochstein and McGurk are expected to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and Minister for Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer, according to the Axios report.

Israeli and U.S. officials believe that Hezbollah is finally willing to disconnect itself from Hamas in Gaza after some of the blows that the Lebanese group has faced over the past two months, including the killing of its leader Hassan Nasrallah, the Axios report said.

The U.S. State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.