Report: US and Israel quietly discuss options to cool tensions with Lebanon

Senior officials from the U.S. and Israel held a low-profile virtual meeting on Tuesday to discuss how to ease tensions with Lebanon and prevent an all out war between Israel and Hezbollah, four Israeli and U.S. officials told U.S. news portal Axios.

“The meeting, which hasn't been announced by the White House or the Israeli government, was initiated by the Biden administration to take the pulse on the Israeli side and coordinate their policies about the situation in Lebanon,” officials said.

The virtual meeting lasted an hour. The U.S. team was led by White House national Security Adviser Jake Sullivan. President Joe Biden's advisers Amos Hochstein and Brett McGurk also participated. The Israeli team was led by the Minister for Strategic Affairs and Netanyahu confidant Ron Dermer, officials say.

According to an Israeli official, the parties discussed how to reach a long-term diplomatic solution to end the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in a scenario where a ceasefire deal is reached in Gaza and hundreds of thousands of displaced Israelis and Lebanese are allowed to return to their homes along the border.

But the official said the parties also discussed how to de-escalate the fighting in the more likely scenario at the moment of no Gaza ceasefire deal in the near term.

The main Israeli demand is that any diplomatic deal with Lebanon will include the withdrawal of Hezbollah's elite Radwan force at least 10 kilometers from the border.

“The Israeli side stressed during the meeting that the key to such a deal is how to verify that Hezbollah's militants have indeed left the area near the border and don't come back,” the officials said.

“The Israelis demand the U.S. pledge to support Israeli military action against Hezbollah forces if they do return,” the officials say.

An Israeli official meanwhile told Axios that Hochstein said in the meeting that a Gaza ceasefire deal would lead to de-escalation in Lebanon and as a result, allow Israel to focus again its normalization deal with Saudi Arabia.