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Israel, Hezbollah Negotiate Hochstein Proposals amid Escalating Violence

US mediator Amos Hochstein (Reuters)
US mediator Amos Hochstein (Reuters)
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Israel, Hezbollah Negotiate Hochstein Proposals amid Escalating Violence

US mediator Amos Hochstein (Reuters)
US mediator Amos Hochstein (Reuters)

With Israel pushing to include Lebanon in the Doha negotiations and US mediator Amos Hochstein proposing a new ceasefire plan, Israel and Hezbollah have escalated their cross-border shelling.
Experts in Tel Aviv say both sides are using firepower as leverage. Israel is pressuring Hezbollah by displacing Lebanese villages and destroying homes, while Hezbollah ambushes Israeli forces and targets settlements.
Escalating strikes continued Monday amid reports that US, Egyptian, and Qatari mediators believe a Lebanon deal is unlikely without a prisoner swap to end the Gaza conflict.
An Israeli security official told Haaretz that Hezbollah, following the assassination of its leader Hassan Nasrallah, is trying to show it remains strong and influential in Lebanon.
Hezbollah insists on linking the Gaza and Lebanon fronts and rejects Israel’s push to amend UN Security Council Resolution 1701, stalling negotiations.
According to Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel has set the following conditions for negotiations on the Lebanese front:
Full compliance with UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which requires Hezbollah to implement a complete ceasefire, withdraw its forces beyond the Litani River, and allow the Lebanese army to deploy in southern Lebanon. Following these steps, Israel would retreat to the international border.
Implementation of Resolution 1559, which demands the disarmament of Hezbollah and its dismantling as an independent militia within 24 months, led by the Lebanese army and supported by international enforcement.
Creating a new UN Security Council resolution that imposes sanctions on any country providing arms to Hezbollah, specifically naming Iran, Syria, and Russia.
Adding a clause that allows Israel complete military freedom to enforce these resolutions if Hezbollah’s power in Lebanon increases or if there are ceasefire violations.
Israelis say Hochstein, set to arrive in Tel Aviv on Tuesday, agrees on adding enforcement mechanisms to the UN Security Council resolution but is seeking to ease Israel’s conditions.
He aims to create a new negotiation framework to finalize the border between Israel and Lebanon and resolve disputes over 12 border points.
Israel believes that by applying military pressure on Hezbollah and its support network, as well as Lebanon overall, it can impose its terms and create significant shifts in the relationship between the two countries. This escalation is occurring despite the rising costs of Israel's operations in Lebanon.
Strategic expert Amatzia Baram states that Israel aims to shift the balance of power in Lebanon and reduce Iranian influence in the region, which could unite various factions within Lebanon and beyond.
He emphasizes that Israel should establish a new reality in Lebanon through a political settlement, using its military power as leverage.
Unlike past agreements that primarily affected Israel, this time, two key conditions must be met: a meaningful enforcement mechanism to ensure compliance with the agreements and the legitimacy of proactive military action by Israel if the accords are violated.

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US Tracking Nearly 500 Incidents of Civilian Harm During Israel’s Gaza War

People pray by the bodies of Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip October 30, 2024. (Reuters)
People pray by the bodies of Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip October 30, 2024. (Reuters)
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US Tracking Nearly 500 Incidents of Civilian Harm During Israel’s Gaza War

People pray by the bodies of Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip October 30, 2024. (Reuters)
People pray by the bodies of Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip October 30, 2024. (Reuters)

US State Department officials have identified nearly 500 potential incidents of civilian harm during Israel's military operations in Gaza involving US-furnished weapons, but have not taken further action on any of them, three sources, including a US official familiar with the matter, said this week.

The incidents - some of which might have violated international humanitarian law, according to the sources - have been recorded since Oct. 7, 2023, when the Gaza war started. They are being collected by the State Department's Civilian Harm Incident Response Guidance, a formal mechanism for tracking and assessing any reported misuse of US-origin weapons.

State Department officials gathered the incidents from public and non-public sources, including media reporting, civil society groups and foreign government contacts.

The mechanism, which was established in August 2023 to be applied to all countries that receive US arms, has three stages: incident analysis, policy impact assessment, and coordinated department action, according to a December internal State Department cable reviewed by Reuters.

None of the Gaza cases had yet reached the third stage of action, said a former US official familiar with the matter. Options, the former official said, could range from working with Israel's government to help mitigate harm, to suspending existing arms export licenses or withholding future approvals.

The Washington Post first reported the nearly 500 incidents on Wednesday.

The Biden administration has said it is reasonable to assess that Israel has breached international law in the conflict, but assessing individual incidents was "very difficult work," State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters on Wednesday.

"We are conducting those investigations, and we are conducting them thoroughly, and we are conducting them aggressively, but we want to get to the right answer, and it's important that we not jump to a pre-ordained result, and that we not skip any of the work," Miller said, adding that Washington consistently raises concerns over civilian harm with Israel.

The administration of President Joe Biden has long said it is yet to definitively assess an incident in which Israel has violated international humanitarian law during its operation in Gaza.

John Ramming Chappell, advocacy and legal adviser at the Center for Civilians in Conflict, said the Biden administration "has consistently deferred to Israeli authorities and declined to do its own investigations."

"The US government hasn't done nearly enough to investigate how the Israeli military uses weapons made in the United States and paid for by US taxpayers," he said.

The civilian harm process does not only look at potential violations of international law but at any incident where civilians are killed or injured and where US arms are implicated, and looks at whether this could have been avoided or reduced, said one US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

A review of an incident can lead to a recommendation that a unit needs more training or different equipment, as well as more severe consequences, the official said.

Israel's military conduct has come under increasing scrutiny as its forces have killed more than 43,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the enclave's health authorities.

The latest episode of bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered on Oct. 7, 2023, when Palestinian Hamas fighters attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and abducting 250 others, according to Israeli tallies.