Lebanese official sees US serious about truce with envoy due to visit

By Laila Bassam and Maya Gebeily

BEIRUT (Reuters) -A U.S. envoy is due in Lebanon on Tuesday for talks on a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, with Beirut positive about Washington’s efforts to end the war but seeking changes to how a truce would be monitored, a senior Lebanese official said.

The trip by White House envoy Amos Hochstein, whose visit has been flagged by several Lebanese sources but has yet to be confirmed by Washington, is expected to build on a U.S. ceasefire proposal submitted to Lebanon’s government last week.

Washington’s ceasefire diplomacy has come back into focus as its ally Israel has stepped up its offensive. Israeli strikes in two Beirut neighbourhoods killed six people including at least one senior Hezbollah official on Sunday, the first time Israel has struck central areas of the capital in more than five weeks.

World powers say a Lebanon ceasefire must be based on U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701 which ended a 2006 war between Israel and the heavily armed Hezbollah.

Its terms require that the Iran-backed Hezbollah moves weapons and fighters north of the Litani river, some 20 km (30 miles) north of the Israeli border.

Hezbollah has suffered major blows since Israel stepped up its offensive against the group in late September, killing its leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and pounding Lebanon with airstrikes. The group has kept up rocket fire into northern Israel, where sirens sounded again on Monday.

Hezbollah submitted notes on the U.S. ceasefire proposal to Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri that would not obstruct a truce, the Lebanese official said.

But Lebanon was opposed to a proposal to expand a ceasefire monitoring committee to include possibly Germany or Britain.

“If, for example, a Hezbollah facility appears, who will dismantle it?” the official said, adding: “The Lebanese side wants the (Lebanese) army to deal with this.”

Israel has long complained that Resolution 1701 was never implemented properly, noting the presence of Hezbollah fighters and weapons along the border. Lebanon says Israel violated it by regularly flying in Lebanese airspace.

Berri, endorsed by Hezbollah to negotiate, told Asharq al-Awsat newspaper on Friday that discussion was underway about the “proposed alternative (monitoring) mechanism”. “We won’t go along with it,” he said. Berri said there was a “clear existing mechanism” that could be activated, referring to U.N. peacekeepers.

He said the proposal did not include freedom for Israel to act should Hezbollah violate any agreement – an Israeli demand that Lebanon has rejected.

HEZBOLLAH MEDIA OFFICIAL KILLED

Lebanese lawmaker Kassem Hashem, a member of Berri’s parliamentary bloc, told Voice of Lebanon on Monday that the atmosphere was positive but complained that Israel was forcing Lebanon to study the draft “under fire”.

Israel has intensified airstrikes over the last week, hitting Beirut’s Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs on a daily basis and widening raids to central areas on Sunday, when it killed Hezbollah media official Mohammad Afif.

Residents of Mar Elias, one of the neighbourhoods targeted, surveyed the damage on Monday morning. Hussein Zahwa said he had rescued his seven-year-old daughter as she struggled to breathe. “I went up and took them from among the rubble,” he said.

Israel launched its offensive after almost a year of cross-border hostilities with Hezbollah. Its declared goal is to dismantle Hezbollah’s capabilities to secure the return of tens of thousands of Israelis who evacuated the north due to rockets fired by Hezbollah in solidarity with its ally Hamas as the Gaza war got underway more than a year ago.

Israel’s campaign has uprooted more than 1 million people in Lebanon, sparking a humanitarian crisis.

Israeli attacks have killed 3,481 people in Lebanon since hostilities began more than a year ago, the Lebanese health ministry says, most of them since late September. The figures do not distinguish between combatants and civilians.

Hezbollah strikes have killed 43 civilians in northern Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, while 73 soldiers have been killed in strikes in northern Israel and the Golan Heights and in combat in southern Lebanon, according to Israeli figures.

(Reporting by Laila Bassam and Maya Gebeily in Beirut, Jana Choukeir and Clauda Tanios in Dubai; James Mackenzie in Jerusalem; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Ros Russell)