Israel poised between north ceasefire and southern Lebanon ground campaign

Israel stood poised on Wednesday night between a ceasefire along its northern border or a ground invasion of Lebanon as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepared to depart that night to participate in the high-level portion of the 79th opening session of the United Nations General Assembly.

“I cannot detail everything we are doing, but I can tell you one thing – we are determined to return our residents in the North home safely,” he said prior to Wednesday’s security cabinet meeting.

“We are inflicting blows on Hezbollah that it never imagined. We are doing it with might; we are doing it with stratagems. I promise you one thing – we will not rest until they return home.”

He spoke amid a renewed push by the United States for a ceasefire deal that restores calm to northern Israel by pausing – if not ending – the yearlong constrained IDF-Hezbollah cross-border war, which in the last week had threatened to escalate into an all-out Third Israeli-Lebanese War.

Attaining Resolution 1701

The IDF has simultaneously been poised to reenter southern Lebanon to push the Iranian proxy group Hezbollah back to the Litani River as mandated by United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the Second Lebanon War in 2006.

Israel widened its airstrikes in Lebanon and shot down a missile that Hezbollah said it had aimed at the headquarters of the Mossad intelligence agency near Tel Aviv.

“You hear the jets overhead; we have been striking all day,” IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Herzi Halevi told troops on the border with Lebanon, according to a statement from the military.

“This is both to prepare the ground for your possible entry and to continue degrading Hezbollah,” he said.

The United Nations Security Council was expected to meet Wednesday night in New York to discuss the Israeli-Lebanese crisis.

US President Joe Biden told ABC’s The View, “An all-out war is possible, but I think there’s also the opportunity – we’re still in play to have a settlement that can fundamentally change the whole region.”

The United States is spearheading a new diplomatic effort to end hostilities in both Gaza and Lebanon, linking the two conflicts as part of a single initiative, six sources familiar with the initiative told Reuters.

Details are being hammered out at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, according to two Lebanese officials, two Western diplomats, a source familiar with the thinking of Hezbollah, and a source briefed on the talks.

White House slow to react

The White House National Security Council did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Three Israeli officials told Reuters that the United States and France were working on ceasefire proposals but that no significant process had been made so far.

It would be the first time the two fronts are linked as part of a US diplomatic push, the sources said.

The deal may eventually lead to the release of the remaining 97 hostages seized during the Hamas-led invasion of Israel on October 7, along with two Israeli civilians and the bodies of two IDF soldiers previously held by Hamas, according to the source familiar with Hezbollah’s thinking and the source briefed on the talks.

The United States has sought to contain tensions in the Middle East since October 7.

Foreign Minister Israel Katz appeared to refer to those ceasefire efforts on Wednesday, when he spoke of how the “US and other countries are leading an effort to promote the possibility of a diplomatic solution in Lebanon on the basis of Resolution 1701.”

The senior Lebanese official and the source familiar with Hezbollah’s thinking told Reuters that Hezbollah was “open to any settlement that would include both Gaza and Lebanon.”

The second Lebanese official said that it would be “impossible” to stop the conflicts without putting together “a package.”

Plenty of meetings, but no action

In a sign of the accelerating diplomacy, Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said late on Monday that he would travel to New York for meetings on recent developments. He had not been previously planning to attend.

At a meeting with Gulf Cooperation Council member states in New York, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, “We meet at a time of high tension. Risk of escalation in the region is acute, and I know that we are all very much focused on that.

“The best answer is diplomacy, and our coordinated efforts are vital to preventing further escalation and to paving the path to greater peace and stability.

“With regard to Lebanon, we’ve been working tirelessly with partners to avoid a full-blown war and to move to a diplomatic process that would allow Israelis and Lebanese alike to go back to their homes,” he said.

Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed Al Thani spoke of the risk of regional spillover, saying that he believes “it’s getting more and more dangerous and worrying, and we believe that all of us, we have a responsibility to stop this, and just to stand up and to step up and to say enough is enough, and we need to find a solution.”

The State Department said on Wednesday that it was sanctioning entities and individuals associated with trade networks that support Hezbollah. It said it was “imposing sanctions on one individual and four entities and identifying nine vessels as blocked property for their involvement in facilitating illicit trade to Syria and East Asia in support of Hezbollah and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.”

Among the sanctioned vessels were four ships associated with the fleet of US-designated Syrian national Abdul Jalil Mallah and his brother Luay al-Mallah – also sanctioned – the State Department said. The brothers have continued to use these vessels in support of Iran and Hezbollah’s destabilizing activities, it added.

“Today’s action reaffirms our commitment to disrupting sanctions evasion networks that benefit Iran-aligned actors in the Middle East. We will continue to expose the efforts of these actors to exploit the international financial system to finance Iran’s partners and proxies,” the State Department said.

Reuters contributed to this report.