Israel security cabinet starts meeting on Lebanon truce

Israel's security cabinet started Tuesday discussing a proposed ceasefire deal in Lebanon.

The meeting is taking place in Tel Aviv, the official in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said.

Israeli officials had voiced optimism about prospects for a ceasefire. Mike Herzog, Israel's ambassador to Washington, told Israeli Army Radio that several points had yet to be finalized. Though any deal would require agreement from the government, Herzog said Israel and Hezbollah were “close to a deal."

“It can happen within days,” he said.

Israeli officials have said the sides are close to an agreement that would include withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon and a pullback of Hezbollah fighters from the Israeli border. But several sticking points remain.

Two Israeli officials told The Associated Press that Netanyahu’s security Cabinet had scheduled a meeting for Tuesday, but they said it remained unclear whether the Cabinet would vote to approve the deal. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were discussing internal deliberations.

Danny Danon, Israel’s U.N. ambassador, told reporters that he expected a ceasefire agreement with Hezbollah to have stages and to be discussed by leaders Monday or Tuesday. Still, he warned, “it’s not going to happen overnight.”

After previous hopes for a ceasefire were dashed, U.S. officials cautioned that negotiations were not yet complete and noted that there could be last-minute hitches that either delay or destroy an agreement.

"Nothing is done until everything is done," White House national security spokesman John Kirby said.

The proposal under discussion to end the fighting calls for an initial two-month ceasefire during which Israeli forces would withdraw from Lebanon and Hezbollah would end its armed presence along the southern border south of the Litani River.

The withdrawals would be accompanied by an influx of thousands more Lebanese army troops, who have been largely sidelined in the war, to patrol the border area along with an existing U.N. peacekeeping force.

Western diplomats and Israeli officials said Israel is demanding the right to strike in Lebanon if it believes Hezbollah is violating the terms. The Lebanese government has said that such an arrangement would authorize violations of the country's sovereignty.

A ceasefire could mark a step toward ending the regionwide war that ballooned after Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

The lack of a ceasefire has emerged as a political liability for Israeli leaders including Netanyahu, particularly while 60,000 Israelis remain away from their homes in the country's north after more than a year of cross-border violence.

Hezbollah rockets have reached as far south into Israel as Tel Aviv. At least 75 people have been killed, more than half of them civilians. More than 50 Israeli soldiers died fighting in the ground offensive in Lebanon. The Israeli military said about 250 projectiles were fired Sunday, with some intercepted.

A ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, the strongest of Iran’s armed proxies, is expected to significantly calm regional tensions that have led to fears of a direct, all-out war between Israel and Iran. It’s not clear how the ceasefire will affect the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. Hezbollah had long insisted that it would not agree to a ceasefire until the war in Gaza ends, but it dropped that condition.

A top Hamas official in Lebanon said the Palestinian militant group would support a ceasefire between its Lebanese ally Hezbollah and Israel, despite Hezbollah’s previous promises to stop the fighting in Lebanon only if the war in Gaza ends.

“Any announcement of a ceasefire is welcome. Hezbollah has stood by our people and made significant sacrifices,” Osama Hamdan of Hamas' political wing told the Lebanese broadcaster Al-Mayadeen, which is seen as politically allied with Hezbollah.

While the ceasefire proposal is expected to be approved if Netanyahu brings it to a vote in his security Cabinet, one hard-line member, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, said he would oppose it. He said on X that a deal with Lebanon would be a “big mistake” and a “missed historic opportunity to eradicate Hezbollah.”

If the ceasefire talks fail, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said, “it will mean more destruction and more and more animosity and more dehumanization and more hatred and more bitterness.”

Speaking at a G7 meeting in Fiuggi, Italy, the last summit of its kind before U.S. President Joe Biden leaves office, Safadi said such a failure "will doom the future of the region to more conflict and more killing and more destruction.”

The G7 foreign ministers also called for an "immediate ceasefire" in Lebanon.

"We support the ongoing negotiation for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah," the ministers said in a statement, adding: "Now is the time to conclude a diplomatic settlement."