UN resolution basis for Lebanon truce: US

FE Team | Published: October 21, 2024 21:54:23

BEIRUT, Oct 21 (AFP/ Reuters/ AP): Visiting US envoy Amos Hochstein said Monday the basis of a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah was a 2006 United Nations resolution but that it would require full implementation.
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 states that only the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers should be deployed in southern Lebanon, while demanding the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanese territory.
Attention has focused on the resolution during the latest Israel-Hezbollah war that erupted last month after nearly a year of cross-border fire.
"The commitment that we have is to resolve this conflict based on (UN Resolution) 1701 -- that is what the solution is going to have to look like," Hochstein said on his first visit to Beirut since the war started.
Resolution "1701 was successful at ending the war in 2006 but we must be honest that no one did anything to implement it," he added, saying: "Both sides simply committing to 1701 is just not enough."
"We have to put things in place that would allow for confidence that it will be implemented for everyone," he told a press conference after meeting Lebanon's Hezbollah-allied speaker of parliament Nabih Berri.
"We have to know this is not just going to another round of conflict in a month or a year or two years," he said.
The US envoy was last in Beirut in August, after months of shuttle diplomacy between Lebanon and Israel with the aim of averting a full-blown conflict.
Israel gives US its demands
for ending Lebanon war
Israel gave the United States a document last week with its conditions for a diplomatic solution to end the war in Lebanon, Axios reported on Sunday, citing two US officials and two Israeli officials.
Israel has demanded its IDF forces be allowed to engage in "active enforcement" to make sure Hezbollah doesn't rearm and rebuild its military infrastructure close to the border, Axios reported, citing an Israeli official.
Israel also demanded its air force have freedom of operation in Lebanese air space, the report added. A US official told Axios it was highly unlikely that Lebanon and the international community would agree to Israel's conditions.
Israel's military announced Sunday it is now taking aim at the Lebanon-based Hezbollah's financial arm and will attack a "large number of targets" in Beirut and elsewhere. Explosions began in Beirut's southern suburbs about an hour later.
Evacuation warnings affected southern Beirut, the eastern Bekaa valley and parts of southern Lebanon. AP video showed strikes near Lebanon's only airport but it continued to operate.
The strikes will target al-Qard al-Hassan "all over Lebanon," a senior Israeli intelligence official said. Al-Qard al-Hassan is a Hezbollah unit that's used to pay operatives of the Iran-backed militant group and help buy arms, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with army regulations.