A report by a Lebanese news outlet has cited “Western diplomatic sources” who said that Israel has set a deadline for a diplomatic agreement to end daily clashes on the northern border with the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorist organization and its host government, Lebanon.
According to the report published Thursday by the Hezbollah-linnked Al-Akhbar news outlet, if a diplomatic agreement is not reached by mediators by March 15, Israel is prepared to escalate its military operations along the border into a full-scale war against Hezbollah.
This past Tuesday, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told US envoy Amos Hochstein the defense establishment is “committed” to the ongoing diplomatic efforts to reach “understandings” but emphasized that “Hezbollah’s aggression is dragging the parties to a dangerous escalation.”
Gallant warned there is a need to change the security situation in the north in order to “safely return Israel’s displaced communities to their homes.”
An Israeli government spokesperson declined to address the issue Thursday afternoon in a briefing with international media; however, an Israeli official later denied the report to Hebrew-language media.
Earlier in the week, Hochstein told reporters during a visit to Beirut, “A ceasefire in Gaza doesn’t necessarily mean a ceasefire in southern Lebanon. If a war breaks out beyond the southern Lebanese border, it will not be possible to contain it.”
The ceasefire agreement that ended the 2006 Second Lebanon War between Israel and Hezbollah was cemented by the United Nations Security Council in its Resolution 1701, which set southern Lebanon as a zone in which only the Lebanese National Army would be present. Hezbollah and any other armed force was to remain on the northern side of the Litani River, some 20 kilometers away from Israel’s border with Lebanon.
But the resolution and its ceasefire agreement was never enforced by the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) peacekeeping force tasked with its implementation.
The day after Gaza’s Iranian-backed Hamas terrorist organization launched its war with the torture, massacre and abduction of Israelis on October 7 — a Shabbat which was also the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah — Hezbollah launched its own campaign of daily attacks against the Jewish State from the north, creating in effect a second front.
If a diplomatic agreement is reached, “The United Nations and France are to implement Resolution 1701 and initiate a border settlement that provides long-term security and guarantees the return of the displaced on both sides of the border,” the source told Al-Akhbar.
However, the Hezbollah-linked news outlet reported, “All developments depend on what will happen in Gaza and what will be reached in the ongoing negotiations in Cairo, because any discussion about political arrangements in Lebanon and a solution to a ceasefire will not be translatable as long as the firing continues in the Gaza Strip.”
At least 80,000 Israelis from northern Israel have become internal refugees due to the ongoing threat posed by Hezbollah. At some point, that situation is going to explode, either in a Third Lebanon War with Hezbollah, or in a political disaster within the Jewish State.
