Blinken says Hezbollah attacks cost Israel sovereignty in the north

Israel has “effectively lost sovereignty” in the north as Hezbollah attacks from southern Lebanon have displaced much of the population, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said this week, underscoring the stakes of cross-border attacks that threatened to spark a larger regional war beyond the conflict in Gaza.

Mr. Blinken spoke ahead of a trip by a senior White House official, Amos Hochstein, for talks in Paris on how to defuse escalating border fire between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah militants in Lebanon. Mr. Hochstein, the top White House official for global energy and infrastructure, has become President Biden’s de facto envoy in the search for a resolution to the border conflict.

Mr. Hochstein’s plan to meet French officials was confirmed by a person close to the talks, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy. Lebanon was a French protectorate after World War I; France still has some influence there and has made proposals to stop the fighting. The White House had no immediate comment.

U.S. officials have been trying for months to prevent a war between Israel and Hezbollah. Hezbollah is backed by Iran and has launched rocket attacks on northern Israel in solidarity with Hamas, the armed group that controlled Gaza and started the current war with an attack on Israel on Oct. 7.

Fears of a full-scale, open war between Israel and Hezbollah have grown in recent weeks as cross-border fire exchanges have intensified. Israeli officials have openly discussed shifting their military focus from Hamas to Hezbollah, a far more sophisticated and powerful military threat.

Firas Maksad, senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, wrote on Xthere was still time for the key players to find a diplomatic solution. Mr. Hochstein’s trip, he said, would likely take place on Wednesday. “The window for diplomacy is closing, but it is not closed,” he said.

Mr. Blinken, speaking Monday at the Brookings Institution, an independent think tank in Washington, D.C., said he did not believe the main actors in the border conflict — Israel, Hezbollah and Iran — actually wanted to go to war, but that the “momentum” of the clashes could lead to that. U.S. officials fear that such a conflict could force the United States to defend Israel.

“Nobody really wants a war,” Mr. Blinken said. He said that Iran, a determined enemy of Israel, “wants to make sure that Hezbollah is not destroyed and that it can hold Hezbollah like a hand if it needs to, if it ever gets into a direct conflict with Israel.”

About 60,000 Israelis have fled the area of ​​the border clashes, many of whom have been living in Tel Aviv hotels for the past nine months. Referring to the situation, Mr. Blinken said that “Israel has effectively lost sovereignty in the northern quadrant of its country because people don’t feel safe enough to go to their homes.” The fighting has also displaced tens of thousands of people from southern Lebanon.

“If the insecurity is not addressed, people will not have the confidence to go back,” Mr. Blinken said. To solve the problem, he added, an agreement is needed to withdraw troops from the border.

Mr Blinken noted that Hezbollah has said that if a ceasefire is reached in Gaza, it will stop firing into Israel. That “underscores why a ceasefire in Gaza is so critical,” he said. But the latest round of negotiations between Israel and Hamas appear to be stalled.

Mr. Hochstein has met in recent weeks with Israeli officials, as well as Lebanese officials who can relay messages to and from Hezbollah, in an effort to negotiate a Hezbollah withdrawal to a position far enough from the border to satisfy Israel. In return, Israel could withdraw from some disputed border areas and the U.S. could provide economic aid to southern Lebanon, analysts say.