U.S. special envoy Amos Hochstein meets with Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati in Beirut, Lebanon August 14, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Visiting U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein warned on Wednesday (August 14) 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.

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Mr. 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,” Mr. Hochstein said.

“We have to take advantage of this window for diplomatic action and diplomatic solutions. That time is now.”

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.

“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,” Hochstein warned.

Diplomatic resolution ‘achievable’

“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,” Mr. Hochstein said.

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“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,” Mr. Hochstein said.

Hezbollah has repeatedly said it would only end hostilities once a Gaza ceasefire deal has been reached.

The U.S. envoy also met Prime Minister Najib Mikati, who warned in a statement that “Israeli intransigence is threatening efforts to stop the war”.

Last week, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said his group and Iran were “obliged to respond” to Israel “whatever the consequences” after the killings of Shukr and Haniyeh.

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.

The Hamas ally has traded near daily fire with the Israeli army since the Palestinian militant group’s October 7 attack on Israel which triggered the Gaza war.

The violence has killed some 568 people in Lebanon, mostly fighters but also including at least 118 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

On the Israeli side, including in the annexed Golan Heights, 22 soldiers and 26 civilians have been killed, according to army figures.

Israeli police and a soldier work at the impact site of a projectile after Lebanon’s armed group Hezbollah said it launched a swarm of attack drones against military targets in northern Israel, in Nahariya, Israel on August 6, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Lebanon’s armed group Hezbollah launched a series of drone and rocket attacks into northern Israel on Tuesday (August 6, 2024) but warned that its much-anticipated retaliation for Israel’s killing of a top commander last week was yet to come.

Hezbollah said it launched a swarm of attack drones at two military sites near Acre in northern Israel, and also attacked an Israeli military vehicle in another location.

The Israeli military said a number of hostile drones were identified crossing from Lebanon and one was intercepted. It said several civilians were injured to the south of the coastal city of Nahariya. Reuters TVfootage showed one impact site near a bus stop on a main road outside the city.

In a statement, the Israeli military said sirens sounded around Acre, but that turned out to be a false alarm. It said its air force struck two Hezbollah facilities in south Lebanon.

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Fears are rising that the Middle East could be tipped into full-blown war following vows by Hezbollah to avenge Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr’s killing, and by Iran to respond to the assassination in Tehran last week of the head of Palestinian militant group Hamas.

A Hezbollah source told Reuters that “the response to the assassination of commander Fuad Shukr has not yet come.”

Earlier on Tuesday, four people were killed in a strike on a home in the Lebanese town of Mayfadoun, nearly 30 km (19 miles) north of the border, medics and a security source said.

Two additional security sources said those killed were Hezbollah fighters, but the group had not yet posted its usual death notices.

Hezbollah and the Israeli military have been trading fire for the last 10 months in parallel with the Gaza war, with the tit-for-tat strikes mostly limited to the border area.

Last week, Israel killed Shukr, Hezbollah’s senior-most military commander, in a strike on the group’s stronghold in the southern suburbs of Lebanon’s capital Beirut.

Hezbollah’s leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, vowed revenge, but said the response would be “studied.” He is set to speak on Tuesday at the one-week memorial for Shukr.