Islam Times - US-drafted Ceasefire Deal: Expensive Peace for Lebanon, Easy Victory for Netanyahu

US-drafted Ceasefire Deal: Expensive Peace for Lebanon, Easy Victory for Netanyahu

Islam Times - Having announced second stage of its military operation in southern Lebanon, the Israeli regime has recently stepped up its already heavy bombing on the southern dahieh (outskirts) of Beirut, Beqaa Valley in the east, and south of the country.

The intensified attacks come as the special US envoy to Lebanon Amos Hochstein has talked about making advances to a possible ceasefire on Lebanon and on Thursday Lebanese media reported that the American ambassador to Lebanon Lisa Johnson handed over to Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri draft of a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hezbollah.

Meanwhile, some American media like the Washington Post, citing Israeli sources, claimed that "a close aide to Netanyahu told Donald Trump and Jared Kushner this week that Israel is rushing to advance a ceasefire deal in Lebanon, according to three current and former Israeli officials briefed on the meeting, with the aim of delivering an early foreign policy win to the president-elect."

This is something clearly conflicting with the Israeli army actions and remarks of officials.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Israeli regime Gideon Sa'ar has confirmed in recent days that he is cooperating with Washington in this field, but he linked this issue to "the retreat of Hezbollah to the other side of the Litani River" and at the same time Minister of Security Israel Katz emphasized that no ceasefire in Lebanon is likely without realization of Israeli war aims.

The Israel Hayum newspaper quoted an official as saying that the army is preparing "strong operational plans" to continue the war in Lebanon should Hezbollah decline to accept the terms of the ceasefire.

In the meantime, Maariv newspaper reported that Israeli army has started second stage of its Lebanon ground campaign. Channel 14, citing army sources, reported that the army expanded their operations to areas they have not operated in before.

These aggressive positions of the Israeli officials come in a situation where Bassam Molavi, the Minister of the Interior of Lebanon, told Aljazeera that his country rejects Israel's conditions for a ceasefire and wants to return to Resolution 1701. Other Lebanese officials, however, confirm that Lebanon has not received any proposal and what is rumored about the ceasefire proposal is only the news of the Israeli media. Mohammad Afif, head of Hezbollah's media relations, said on Wednesday that no specific and new official proposal regarding a ceasefire has been received by Lebanon and Hezbollah.

Terms of draft ceasefire

In recent days, various media published unconfirmed reports about terms of a US-provided draft deal that are mainly based on the demands of Hochstein during his latest visit to Beirut.

According to these reports, the details of the agreement have been obtained from negotiations between American officials, including Hochstein, the US special representative in Lebanon, and Brett McGurk, the adviser to the US president, with Netanyahu.

The American website Axios claims that these officials have transferred to this outlet a draft agreement that includes the commitment of the governments of Israel and Lebanon to take steps towards the full implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 war in Lebanon.

According to Axios, the agreement will be implemented within 60 days, according to which Israel commits to withdraw all its forces from Lebanon in a phased manner within seven days after the announcement of the agreement, and forces consisting of 10,000 Lebanese army soldiers under supervision of the US and other countries will replace them.

Also, the draft deal suggests that any agreement to sell arms to Lebanon or manufacture them in this country should be ratified by the Lebanese government and the armed forces of this country are given powers to enforce the decision to prevent arming Hezbollah.

Under the draft, the US would commit to appointing a senior American military officer and a senior American national security official to head the monitoring mechanism.

Also, in this draft agreement, Lebanon gives legitimacy to the Israeli regime to carry out military flights in its skies and Tel Aviv commits that its military flights over Lebanon will only be for reconnaissance purposes, and will not be visible to the naked eye as much as possible and will not break the sound barrier.

Offering political victory gift to Tel Aviv

If the information leaked to media about the US-propoded ceasefire deal are valid, the White House is actually seeking to impose a big political defeat on the Lebanese and producing a favorable war result to the Israeli side which is surrender of Hezbollah and changing Lebanon to a country without military sovereignty and giving Israel a privilege of absolute freedom of air, sea, and ground action in Lebanon, while over the past two months of Israeli invasion of Lebanon even the most optimistic Israelis could not think of securing such a victory.

While the Israeli army has been desperately struggling to make an achievement on the battleground in order to gain a bargaining chip on the negotiating table, due to the military power of the Hezbollah forces, Israel has not even been able to move beyond the borders and establish military presence in the villages of southern Lebanon.

During this period, in addition to destroying a large part of the enemy's heavy military equipment, especially tanks, personnel carriers, and even helicopters, Hezbollah has expanded the range of its missile and drone operations from the border towns to the center and south of the occupied territories. Meanwhile, the much-vaunted Iron Dome air defense system has conceded to Hezbollah's complicated operation tactics, allowing for attacks on strategically important economic, military, and security positions.

In the latest statistics announced by Hezbollah published on Wednesday, so far, in addition to the death of more than 100 Israeli soldiers and the wounding of 1,000 other, as a result of the resistance operations, 43 Merkava tanks, more than 8 military bulldozers, more than 2 armored vehicles, more than 2 personnel carriers, more than 2 Hummer vehicles, 4 Hermes 450 drones and 2 Hermes 900 drones of the Israeli regime were also destroyed by Hezbollah fighters during the clashes in southern Lebanon.

After sustaining security blows in pagers explosions and losing part of its command and leadership network, Hezbollah has been quick to rebuild its organizational power. Transition from defensive to offensive mode bears witness to success of its rebuilding efforts. This has added to number of Israelis fleeing their homes due to Hezbollah's attacks and disappointed Israeli government about settling the challenge of displaced settlers using military force.

Therefore, based to battleground realities, the Lebanese resistance will not agree to the American-drafted ceasefire deal and the White House struggle to get Israel out of Lebanon war quagmire by securing a political win will go nowhere.