Lebanese officials: Hezbollah rejects US proposals for cooling fighting with Israel

Iran-backed Hezbollah has rebuffed Washington’s initial ideas for cooling tit-for-tat fighting with Israel, such as pulling its operatives further from the border, but remains open to US diplomacy to avoid a ruinous war, Lebanese officials say.

“Hezbollah is ready to listen,” a senior Lebanese official familiar with the group’s thinking says, while emphasizing that the group saw the ideas presented by veteran US negotiator Amos Hochstein on a visit to Beirut last week as unrealistic.

Hezbollah’s position is that it will fire rockets at Israel until there is a full ceasefire in Gaza.

Despite the rejection and Hezbollah’s volleys of rockets toward Israel, the group’s openness to diplomatic contacts signals an aversion to a wider war, one of the Lebanese officials and a security source say, even after a purported Israeli strike on Beirut on Jan. 2, which killed a Hamas leader.