BEIRUT: Visiting US envoy Amos Hochstein warned Wednesday the clock was ticking for a Gaza ceasefire that could also help end 10 months of cross-border exchanges between Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Israel.
His Lebanon trip comes a day before ceasefire negotiations between Hamas and Israel are set to resume, with top diplomats scrambling to avert all-out war after Iran and Hezbollah vowed revenge for recent high-profile killings.
Hochstein told a Beirut news conference that he and parliament speaker Nabih Berri, a Hezbollah ally, discussed “the framework agreement that’s on the table for a Gaza ceasefire, and he and I agreed there is no more time to waste and there’s no more valid excuses from any party for any further delay”.
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“The deal would also help enable a diplomatic resolution here in Lebanon and that would prevent an outbreak of a wider war,” Hochstein said.
“We have to take advantage of this window for diplomatic action and diplomatic solutions. That time is now.”
Late last month, an Israeli strike killed top Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut’s southern suburbs, a stronghold of the group, just hours before Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in Tehran in an attack blamed on Israel.
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“The more time goes by of escalated tensions… the more the odds and the chances go up for accidents, for mistakes, for inadvertent targets to be hit that could easily cause escalation that gets out of control,” Hochstein warned.
Diplomatic resolution ‘achievable’
“Here in Lebanon we believe we can get to (the) end of the conflict now, today. We recognise that there are those who want to tie it to other conflicts. That is not our position,” Hochstein said.
“We continue to believe that a diplomatic resolution is achievable because we continue to believe that no one truly wants a full-scale war between Lebanon and Israel,” Hochstein said.
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