American envoy Amos Hochstein is scheduled to visit Beirut next week, as the conflict between Hezbollah and the Israeli army intensifies, according to reports from multiple regional media outlets.
Amos Hochstein © X
American envoy Amos Hochstein is scheduled to visit Beirut next week, as the conflict between Hezbollah and the Israeli army intensifies, according to reports from multiple regional media outlets.
At the same time, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to travel to Israel on Tuesday as part of a broader regional visit, Israeli journalist Barak Ravid confirmed.
In a Friday evening interview with al-Jadeed, a Lebanese news outlet, Hochstein emphasized the importance of encouraging the Lebanese state to deploy its army to Southern Lebanon, in line with UN Resolution 1701, which was adopted in 2006.
He acknowledged, however, that the resolution had not been fully implemented and called for an "amendment" to 1701 to address these shortcomings.
Hochstein also underscored the need for the war in Lebanon to be treated separately from other regional conflicts, a veiled reference to Hezbollah's demand to tie any ceasefire in Lebanon to an end to Israel's military offensive in Gaza.
A Lebanese official denied on Thursday a Reuters report that Beirut had agreed with Israel to a shortlist of countries that could send troops to Lebanon to verify the disarmament of Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, and said it was following up on the issue with Washington.
Israel won't withdraw from southern Lebanon until Hezbollah is disarmed, the defence minister said on Thursday, qualifying remarks he made a day earlier that had suggested Israeli forces would occupy the territory indefinitely and drew U.S. criticism.
Israeli troops clashed with Jewish settlers on Wednesday while trying to disperse them from a West Bank outpost they set up directly in front of Palestinian homes, and later withdrew from the area after failing to clear the settlers, witnesses said.
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