Amos Hochstein, U.S. President Joe Biden's special Mideast envoy said escalating violence across the Israel-Lebanon border was inevitable if a diplomatic solution was not reached, Lebanon's Al-Jadeed newspaper reported on Tuesday.
Hochstein met with Lebanon's Shiite Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri to discuss the urgent need for a diplomatic resolution to the crisis while in Israel sirens warned of a drone attack on the Western Galilee, ending 60 hours of relative calm.
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Amos Hochstein and Nabih Berri, Speaker of the Parliament of Lebanon
(Photo: Reuters/Mohamed Azakir)
"The situation on the border between Israel and Lebanon is dangerous. Civilians are being harmed, and their property is being damaged n. Calm at the border would allow residents to return to southern Lebanon and northern Israel."
Saudi Arabia's Al-Hadath television quoted an "Israeli military official" who said that "IDF's conduct on the northern front is mostly defensive.
He said that the targeted killing of Taleb Sami Abdallah - a senior member of the Iran-backed Hezbollah terror group last week, caused chaos among its members. "Hezbollah's capabilities on the border are modest compared to before October 7. Hezbollah has had to withdraw its forces eight kilometers back away from the border. We have managed to push back the threat of Hezbollah's invasion of extensive areas in the Galilee."
The atmosphere surrounding Hochstein's visit so far was not positive," The Saudi channel said in its report, "Hochstein was trying to resolve the dispute over 13 points along the Israel-Lebanon border, demands the deployment of the Lebanese army to the region, urges an expansion of the authority of the UNIFIL forces and requires the removal of Hezbollah from the area south of the Litani River," Al-Hadath reported.