US mediators are working on a proposal to halt hostilities between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah, starting with a 60-day ceasefire, two sources said on Wednesday, as Israel pressed its offensive by bombarding Lebanon's historic city of Baalbek.
The sources - a person briefed on the talks and a senior diplomat working on Lebanon - told Reuters the two-month period would be used to finalize full implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, adopted in 2006 to keep southern Lebanon free of arms outside state control.
The White House said that officials Brett McGurk and Amos Hochstein would visit Israel on Thursday. A US official had said they would be there to discuss a range of issues "including Gaza, Lebanon, hostages, Iran and broader regional matters".
Hezbollah's new leader Naim Qassem said the Iran-backed armed group would agree to a ceasefire within certain parameters if Israel wanted to stop the war, but that Israel had so far not agreed to any proposal that could be discussed.
It was Qassem's first speech as secretary-general, a day after Hezbollah announced his election to the post after Israel assassinated the group's longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah.
The latest ceasefire efforts come as Israel's operation against the heavily armed, Shiite group Hezbollah in Lebanon continues to expand.
Its army launched heavy airstrikes on Wednesday on the eastern city of Baalbek, famed for its Roman temples, and nearby villages, security sources told Reuters, following an Israeli evacuation order. Tens of thousands of Lebanese, including many who had sought shelter in Baalbek from other areas, fled after the warning was issued.
Bilal Raad, regional head of the Lebanese civil defense, said the largely volunteer force had been calling on residents to leave via megaphones after receiving phone calls from someone identifying themselves as being from the Israeli military.
"People are all over each other, the whole city is in a panic trying to figure out where to go, there's a huge traffic jam," he said ahead of the bombardment.
Some of the areas they are fleeing to are already full of people displaced earlier by the Hezbollah-Israel conflict.
Antoine Habchi, a lawmaker representing Christian-majority Deir al-Ahmar to the northwest of Baalbek, said more than 10,000 people were already sheltering in homes, schools and churches.
"We welcome everyone, of course, but we need immediate government help so that these people don't stay out in the cold," he told Reuters.
Lebanon's health ministry said at least 11 people had been killed in an Israeli bombing of one town in the Bekaa Valley region where Baalbek is located but did not have an immediate toll for the entire day's strikes.
It said 2,822 people have been killed in Israel's military campaign in Lebanon since October 2023. More than 1.2 million people have been displaced.
HEZBOLLAH FUEL STORES HIT
Following the airstrikes, the Israeli military said it had targeted Hezbollah fuel reservoirs in the Bekaa. A Lebanese security source told Reuters that a massive explosion followed by a huge column of black smoke had been caused by strikes on Hezbollah's fuel stores.
Responding to a question about Israel's bombardment of Baalbek, the US State Department reiterated on Wednesday that Washington supports Israel's right to go after legitimate Hezbollah targets in Lebanon. But it said Israel must do so in a way that does not threaten civilians, critical civilian infrastructure and significant cultural heritage sites.
For a third straight day, Hezbollah reported intense fighting with Israeli forces in or around the southern town of Khiyam - the deepest Israel's troops are reported to have penetrated into Lebanon since fighting escalated five weeks ago.
Hezbollah also said that it had targeted a military camp southeast of Tel Aviv in Israel with missiles.
Resolution 1701 has been the cornerstone of talks to end the past year of clashes between Israel and Hezbollah, which erupted along the border in parallel with the war in Gaza and has dramatically intensified since late September.
"We'd like to reiterate that we seek a diplomatic resolution that fully implements 1701 and gets both Israeli and Lebanese citizens back to their homes on both sides of the border," said Sama Habib, spokesperson at the US Embassy in Beirut, when asked about the reported proposal.
US envoy Hochstein told reporters in Beirut earlier this month that better mechanisms for enforcement were needed as neither Israel nor Lebanon had fully implemented the 18-year-old resolution.
The two sources told Reuters that the 60-day truce has replaced a proposal last month by the United States and other countries that envisioned a ceasefire for 21 days as a prelude to 1701 coming into full force.
Both, however, cautioned that the deal could still fall through. "There is an earnest push to get to a ceasefire, but it is still hard to get it to materialize," the diplomat said.
The push for a ceasefire for Lebanon comes days before the US presidential election and alongside a similar diplomatic drive to end hostilities in Gaza.
