Barrack reportedly says Israeli response to Lebanese paper positive

U.S. envoy Tom Barrack has told Lebanese officials that the initial Israeli response to the latest Lebanese paper was “positive,” Al-Jadeed TV reported overnight.

Barrack himself had said that he was very satisfied by the response of Lebanon's authorities to a U.S. request to disarm Hezbollah and implement reforms, although he warned Lebanon risks being left behind as change sweeps other countries in the region.

Lebanese leaders who took office in the aftermath of more than a year of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah have vowed a state monopoly on bearing arms, while demanding Israel comply with a November ceasefire.

Israel has warned it will continue to strike until Hezbollah has been disarmed, while the group's leader Sheikh Naim Qassem has said that Hezbollah would not surrender or lay down its weapons in response to Israeli threats.

"It's thoughtful, it's considered. We're creating a go-forward plan," Barrack said last Monday about Lebanon’s response.

"Now what it takes is a... thrust to the details, which we're going to do. We're both committed to get to the details and get a resolution," he said, adding: "I'm very, very hopeful."

Hezbollah was heavily weakened in the latest conflict, with Israel battering the group's arsenal of missiles and rockets and killing senior commanders including longtime chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.

The presidency said on X that President Joseph Aoun handed Barrack "ideas for a comprehensive solution."

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, a Hezbollah ally, said his own meeting with Barrack was constructive and "considered Lebanon's interest and sovereignty... and the demands of Hezbollah."

Barrack said that Hezbollah "needs to see that there's a future for them, that that road is not harnessed just solely against them."

A Lebanese official told AFP that earlier this month, Beirut had submitted an initial response to Washington, which requested modifications, then officials worked through the weekend prior to Barrack’s visit to develop the final version.

Under the ceasefire, Hezbollah was to pull its fighters back north of the Litani river, some 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the Israeli frontier.

Israel was to withdraw its troops from Lebanon, but has kept them deployed in five areas that it deemed strategic.

Lebanese authorities say they have been dismantling Hezbollah's military infrastructure in the south near the Israeli border.

Hezbollah's Qassem said that Israel needed to abide by the ceasefire agreement, "withdraw from the occupied territories, stop its aggression... release the prisoners" detained during last year's war, and that reconstruction in Lebanon must begin.

Only then "will we be ready for the second stage, which is to discuss the national security and defence strategy" which includes the issue of the group's disarmament, he added.