The Security Council met to discuss Lebanon on Wednesday at UN headquarters.
Frank Franklin II/AP
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Frank Franklin II/AP
NEW YORK – The US, France and other allies jointly called Wednesday for an immediate 21-day ceasefire to allow talks in the escalating conflict between Israel and Hezbollah that has killed more than 600 people in Lebanon in recent days.
The joint statement, negotiated on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, said new fighting “cannot be tolerated and presents an unacceptable risk of a wider regional escalation.”
“We call for an immediate 21-day ceasefire on the Lebanese-Israeli border to provide space for diplomacy,” the statement said. “We call on all parties, including the governments of Israel and Lebanon, to agree to a temporary ceasefire.”
There was no immediate reaction from the Israeli or Lebanese governments – or Hezbollah – but a senior US official said all sides were aware of the ceasefire call. Earlier, representatives for Israel and Lebanon reaffirmed their support for a UN resolution ending the 2006 war between Israel and Iran-backed militant groups.
The US hopes the new deal could lead to long-term stability on the border between Israel and Lebanon. Months of exchange of fire between Israel and Hezbollah have driven tens of thousands of people from their homes, and the escalated attacks over the past week have rekindled fears of a wider war in the Middle East.
US officials said Hezbollah would not be a signatory to the ceasefire but believed the Lebanese government would coordinate with the group. He said he expects Israel to “accept” the proposal and may formally accept it when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the General Assembly on Friday.
While the deal only applies to the Israel-Lebanon border, US officials have said they want to use the three-week lull in fighting to restart stalled negotiations for a ceasefire and hostage-release deal between Israel and Hamas, another Iran-backed group. militant group, after almost a year of war in Gaza.
Countries calling for an end to the Israel-Hezbollah conflict are the United States, Australia, Canada, the European Union, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.
The proposal came to a head this week with President Joe Biden’s national security team, led by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan, meeting with world leaders in New York and lobbying other countries to support the plan, according to the US. official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic conversations.
Blinken first raised the proposal with French foreign ministers Monday and then expanded his reach later that evening during a dinner with the foreign ministers of all the Group of Seven industrial democracies.
During a Wednesday morning meeting with the foreign ministers of the Gulf Cooperation Council, Blinken approached Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani and Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan to ask for an agreement and get it. Blinken and White House senior adviser Amos Hochstein later met with Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati, who signed the agreement.
Sullivan, Hochstein and senior adviser Brett McGurk are also in touch with Israeli officials about the proposal, one US official said. McGurk and Hochstein have been the main interlocutors of the White House with Israel and Lebanon since the October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas opened the war in Gaza.
The official said the deal crystallized late Wednesday afternoon during a conversation on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly between Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron.
Blinken expects to meet Netanyahu’s strategic advisers in New York on Thursday ahead of the prime minister’s arrival.
Israeli officials say Netanyahu has given the green light to pursue a deal, but only if it includes the return of Israeli civilians to their homes. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were discussing behind-the-scenes diplomacy.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot told the UN Security Council during a special meeting that “we count on both sides to accept without delay” and added that “war is inevitable.”
At the meeting, Mikati, the Lebanese prime minister, publicly threw his support behind the French-US plan which “enjoys international support and which will end this dirty war.”
He called on the Security Council “to ensure Israel’s withdrawal from all occupied Lebanese territory and its daily repeated violations.”
Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, told reporters that Israel wants to see a ceasefire and return to homes near the border: “It will happen, after the war or before the war. Before.”
Addressing the Security Council later, he did not mention a temporary ceasefire but said Israel “is not seeking a full-scale war.”
Danon and Mikati reaffirmed the government’s commitment to the Security Council resolution that ended the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war. Never fully implemented, it called for an end to hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon to be replaced by Lebanese forces and UN peacekeepers, and the disarmament of all armed groups including Hezbollah.
Earlier Wednesday, Biden warned in an appearance on ABC’s “The View” that “all-out war is possible” but said he thought there was an opportunity “to have a settlement that could change the whole region.”
Biden suggested that Israel and Hezbollah agree to a ceasefire that could help end hostilities between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
The war is approaching the one-year mark after Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7, killing around 1,200 people and taking hostages. Israel responded with an attack that has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials, who did not give the damage of civilians and fighters in the count.
“It’s possible and I’m using all the energy I have with my team … to get this done,” Biden said. “There is a desire to see change in the area.”
The U.S. government is also stepping up pressure with additional sanctions targeting more than a dozen ships and other entities it says are involved in illegal shipments of Iranian crude for the financial benefit of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah.
