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.
The past few days have unfolded like a geopolitical drama of historic proportions in Lebanon, where Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Shia militia long considered untouchable, appears to be teetering on the edge of a seismic shift.
Israel has not ruled out an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities in the coming months despite President Donald Trump telling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the U.S. was for now unwilling to support such a move, according to an Israeli official and two other people familiar with the matter.
In a defiant speech on Friday evening, Hezbollah’s Secretary-General, Sheikh Naim Qassem, insisted that the group “will not allow anyone to disarm it,” rejecting growing internal calls for the Lebanese state to reclaim exclusive control over the country’s weapons.
To make this website run properly and to improve your experience, we use cookies. For more detailed information, please check our Cookie Policy.
Necessary cookies enable core functionality. The website cannot function properly without these cookies, and can only be disabled by changing your browser preferences.