Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire: US envoy Hochstein to meet Netanyahu on Thursday

American envoy Amos Hochstein, who is trying to bring about a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, is due to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday, we learned from an official source. Omer Dostri, spokesperson of Mr. Netanyahu, confirmed that the two men were to meet during the day. The meeting should take place at 12:30 p.m. (10:30 a.m. GMT), according to a statement from Likud, the Prime’s party. minister.

According to Israeli media, Mr. Hochstein landed in Israel on Wednesday evening from Lebanon and spoke in the evening with Ron Dermer, Minister of Strategic Affairs and Mr. Netanyahu’s confidant.

The visit comes as part of new efforts to establish a ceasefire in Lebanon, where the Israeli army is fighting the Islamist movement Hezbollah. The American envoy reported Wednesday in Beirut “additional progress” around an American plan providing for a ceasefire and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon, on the basis of UN resolution 1701, having ended, in 2006, the previous war between Israel and the Lebanese Shiite movement.

On October 8, 2023, the day after the unprecedented Hamas attack on Israeli soil that sparked the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip, Hezbollah launched a “front of support” for the Palestinian movement by firing rockets from almost daily in northern Israel.

For months, relatively small-scale cross-border clashes between the Israeli army and Shiite movement fighters have displaced tens of thousands of residents across the dividing line between Israel and Lebanon. .

Saying it wanted to prevent Hezbollah from carrying out attacks on its soil and with the stated aim of allowing the safe return home of some 60,000 inhabitants of the north of the country, Israel launched an intense bombing campaign in Lebanon on September 23, and seven days later launched a ground offensive in the south of the country.