Lebanon PM: Beirut ready to implement resolution on border if Israel also complies

Mikati’s office suggests Jerusalem would have to leave disputed territories including Shebaa Farms; Israeli officials indicate they’d welcome diplomatic path to push Hezbollah back

Smoke billows on the outskirts of the village of Kfarshuba, along Lebanon's southern border with northern Israel following Israeli bombardment on December 20, 2023. (AFP)
Smoke billows on the outskirts of the village of Kfarshuba, along Lebanon's southern border with northern Israel following Israeli bombardment on December 20, 2023. (AFP)

Lebanon is ready to implement a UN resolution that would help end Hezbollah’s cross-border attacks on Israel if Israel also complies and withdraws from disputed territory, Lebanon’s prime minister claimed on Friday.

The border between Lebanon and Israel has seen escalating exchanges of fire since the Israel-Hamas war began on October 7, raising fears of a broader conflagration. Tens of thousands of Israelis have been evacuated from northern border towns, which have been repeatedly targeted by the Hezbollah terror group.

UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended a 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, called for the removal of armed personnel south of Lebanon’s Litani River, except for UN peacekeepers and the Lebanese army and state security forces. But the Iran-backed Hezbollah terror group has entrenched itself across much of southern Lebanon for decades, where it holds strong support, and has regularly launched rockets against Israel, while Beirut does nothing to reign in the group.

The solution to the current cross-border hostilities “is the implementation of international resolutions,” including Resolution 1701, Prime Minister Najib Mikati said in a statement.

“We are totally ready to commit to their implementation, on condition the Israeli side does the same, and withdraws — according to the international laws and resolutions — from occupied territory,” he added.

Mikati’s office said the premier was referring to territory claimed by Lebanon that remains occupied following Israel’s withdrawal from the country’s south in 2000: the disputed Shebaa Farms, the Kfarshuba hills and the Lebanese side of the village of Ghajar.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, left, shakes hands with Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister Najib Mikati at a hotel during a day of meetings in the Jordanian capital Amman on November 4, 2023. (Jonathan Ernst/Pool/AFP)

A diplomatic source, requesting anonymity, told AFP that the proposals to avert another all-out conflict include settling the disputed land border between Israel and Lebanon and encouraging Hezbollah to withdraw its fighters from near the frontier.

Mikati made similar comments two months ago, yet few steps appear to have been taken toward reaching any diplomatic solution, despite some limited shuttle diplomacy.

On Monday, French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna met with senior officials in Beirut, a day after visiting Israel and the West Bank, as part of efforts to de-escalate border tensions, while Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin urged Hezbollah to avoid provoking a “wider conflict.”

Since hostilities began in October, more than 140 people have been killed on the Lebanese side, most of them Hezbollah fighters but also more than a dozen civilians, three of them journalists, according to an AFP tally.

On the Israeli side, four civilians and eight soldiers have been killed, according to officials.

Smoke billows from an IDF post on the border with Lebanon after it was hit by a rocket fired from Lebanon on December 12, 2023. (Jalaa Marey / AFP)

The IDF has said it is only targeting Hezbollah and other terror groups operating in the area; Israel issued a rare apology to Beirut after a strike earlier this month on a Hezbollah-linked target accidentally killed a Lebanese soldier.

Israeli diplomatic officials have suggested in recent weeks that Jerusalem is open to a diplomatic solution to the conflagration along its northern border, but threatened that if a deal is not reached under which Hezbollah gunmen retreat from the border, an all-out war could be possible.

Foreign Minister Eli Cohen on Sunday said ensuring the security of Israelis near the border meant pushing Hezbollah “north of the Litani River,” which is around 30 kilometers (20 miles) north of the frontier.

“There are two ways to do that: either by diplomacy or by force,” Cohen said.

And the same day, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Israel does not want a war, but that “if Hezbollah wants to go up a level, we’ll go up five.”

“We don’t want that, we don’t want to get into a war situation. We want to restore peace and we will do it either through an agreement, or with forceful action, with all its implications,” he told a group of soldiers along the northern border. “We don’t want war, but we won’t hold it off for too long.”

Most Popular
read more: