Top US official holds talks in Paris on demining Israel-Hezbollah conflict
A senior White House official plans to meet with French officials in Paris on Wednesday to discuss ways to dismantle escalating border shelling between Israel and Hezbollah militants in Lebanon, a conflict that Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said this week has resulted in Israel losing sovereignty in the north.
The trip by official Amos Hochstein, the special presidential coordinator for global energy and infrastructure, was confirmed by a person close to the talks, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy.
Mr. Hochstein has become President Biden’s de facto envoy in the search for a resolution to the border conflict. He will meet with Jean-Yves Le Drian, President Emmanuel Macron’s special envoy to Lebanon, and Anne-Claire Legendre, a senior adviser to Mr. Macron, another person close to the talks said.
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 on Mr. Hochstein’s visit.
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 potent military threat.
Firas Maksad, senior fellow at the Washington-based Middle East Institute, wrote on social media that there was still time for the key players to find a diplomatic solution. “The window for diplomacy is closing, but not closed,” he said.
Mr. Blinken, speaking Monday at the Brookings Institution, an independent think tank in Washington, said Israel had “effectively lost its sovereignty” near its border with Lebanon as Hezbollah attacks from across the border have forced much of the population from their homes. About 60,000 Israelis have fled the area, many of them living in Tel Aviv hotels for the past nine months. The fighting has also displaced tens of thousands of people from southern Lebanon.
Mr. Blinken said he did not believe the main actors in the border conflict — Israel, Hezbollah and Iran — actually wanted to go to war, but he noted 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.”
“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.
Euan Department contributed to the reporting.
