US-brokered negotiations over a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah are hanging in the balance amid fierce fighting for control of southern Lebanon.
Hopes for an end to the 13-month conflict grew after officials on all sides reported progress during three days of talks in Beirut and Jerusalem last week, led by US special envoy Amos Hochstein.
However, hostilities escalated again at the end of last week after Hochstein was unable to clinch a final agreement under which Israeli land forces, which invaded southern Lebanon on October 1, would withdraw in return for Hezbollah retreating far enough from the border to no longer pose an imminent threat to communities in northern Israel.
Diplomatic efforts are scheduled to continue in coming weeks, although Middle East experts have dismissed as “absurd” reports that Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants to end the war in Lebanon as a purported gift to US president-elect Donald Trump.
Instead, Israel’s willingness to negotiate was “primarily a result of trying to balance what can be achieved in Lebanon and what the costs of achieving that are”, said Andreas Krieg, an associate professor of defence studies at King’s College London.
The moderate progress Israeli forces had made in southern Lebanon showed that “very little can be achieved”, and what had been achieved came at “an immensely high cost in what is essentially a war of attrition that Israel obviously can’t win”, Krieg told This Week In Asia.
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