Top U.S. envoy Thomas Barrack arrived in Israel on Sunday and met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss Syria and Lebanon, three Israeli officials said.
U.S. Ambassador to Turkey and Special Envoy for Syria Thomas Barrack, Reuters/Emilie Madi
Top U.S. envoy Thomas Barrack arrived in Israel on Sunday and met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss Syria and Lebanon, three Israeli officials said.
The meeting was first reported by Axios, citing three Israeli and U.S. sources, and followed discussions between Barrack and Israel's Minister for Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer and Defence Minister Israel Katz.
Dermer held talks with Syria's foreign minister Asaad al-Shibani in Paris on Tuesday on security arrangements in southern Syria, two Syrian sources familiar with the meeting said.
Syrian and Israeli officials have been conducting U.S.-mediated talks on de-escalating conflict in southern Syria. A previous round of talks was held in Paris in late July but ended without a final accord.
On Monday, Barrack said in Lebanon that Israel should comply with a plan under which Lebanese militant group Hezbollah would be disarmed by the end of the year in exchange for a halt to Israel's military operations in Lebanon.
The plan sets out a phased roadmap for armed groups to hand in their arsenals as Israel's military halts ground, air and sea operations and withdraws troops from Lebanon's south.
Lebanon's cabinet approved the plan's objectives earlier this month despite Hezbollah's refusal to disarm, and Barrack said it was now Israel's turn to cooperate.
There was no immediate comment from Netanyahu's office.
Reporting by Maayan Lubell and Gursimran Kaur
Israeli forces killed four people in southern Lebanon on Monday, Lebanon's National News Agency reported, citing the health ministry, in two separate strikes that the Israeli military said targeted members of the Shi'ite Muslim armed group Hezbollah.
Israel has taken steps to help settlers acquire land in the occupied West Bank and widen its powers in parts of the territory where Palestinians have some self-rule - measures they said aimed to undermine the two-state solution.
Kuwait has added eight Lebanese hospitals to its national sanctions list over alleged links to terrorism, according to the Kuwaiti daily Al-Rai. The hospitals are all located in areas where Hezbollah is influential: southern Lebanon, the Bekaa Valley, and Beirut’s southern suburbs.
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