US is not currently pushing to revive Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire deal, officials say
CNN
Two weeks after Israel upended a US-led ceasefire proposal with Hezbollah, the US is not actively trying to revive the deal and has resigned itself to trying to shape and limit Israeli operations in Lebanon and against Iran rather than halting hostilities, US officials told CNN.
Two weeks after Israel upended a US-led ceasefire proposal with Hezbollah, the US is not actively trying to revive the deal and has resigned itself to trying to shape and limit Israeli operations in Lebanon and against Iran rather than halting hostilities, US officials told CNN. The US’ inability to halt Israel’s intense bombing campaign and ground invasion of Lebanon, which has killed over 1,400 people in less than three weeks and displaced over 1 million more, has raised questions about whether Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is disregarding the Biden administration’s calls for more restraint like it did in Gaza, leaving the White House again looking feckless. Concerns within the Biden administration are running high, officials say, that what Israel has promised would be a limited operation will soon grow into a larger-scale and prolonged conflict. US-led efforts to negotiate a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas have also floundered. As with Gaza, US officials say Israel was initially planning for a much larger ground incursion into Lebanon before the US convinced it to scale back. But they also acknowledge what they have learned over the last year, which is that the US’ influence is limited when it comes to Israel’s military operations. “We couldn’t stop them from taking action, but we can at least try to shape what it looks like,” one senior US official told CNN, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe private deliberations. The ceasefire proposal, which the US put forward with France, had called for a 21-day pause in the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah to give the sides space to work on a larger deal to return Israeli and Lebanese civilians to their homes in northern Israel and southern Lebanon.
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