Israeli cabinet set to meet as Lebanon ceasefire plan reported to be close

A senior Israeli official says Israel’s cabinet is set to meet to weigh a ceasefire deal with Hezbollah that could be cemented in the coming days.

Israeli officials had said earlier in the day that a deal to end the war was getting closer though there were still some issues to resolve while two senior Lebanese officials voiced guarded optimism even as Israeli strikes pounded Lebanon.

News website Axios, citing an unnamed senior US official, said Israel and Lebanon had agreed to the terms of a deal and that Israel’s security cabinet was expected to approve the deal on Tuesday.

Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, said talks toward a ceasefire with Hezbollah were “moving forward” but he stressed that Israel would maintain an ability to strike southern Lebanon under any agreement.

In Beirut, Lebanese Deputy Parliament Speaker Elias Bou Saab told Reuters there were “no serious obstacles” left to beginning implementation of a US-proposed ceasefire with Israel.

Bou Saab said the proposal included a 60-day timeline for Israeli forces to withdraw from Lebanese territory, giving time for the Lebanese army to deploy to southern Lebanon.

He said one sticking point on who would monitor the ceasefire had been resolved in the last 24 hours by agreeing to set up a five-country committee, including France and chaired by the United States.

A Lebanese official and a foreign diplomat told Reuters that the US had informed Lebanese officials a ceasefire could be announced “within hours”.

Hostilities have intensified in parallel with the diplomatic flurry: over the weekend, Israel carried out powerful air strikes, one of which killed at least 29 people in central Beirut - while the Hezbollah group unleashed one of its biggest rocket salvoes yet on Sunday, firing 250 missiles.

In Beirut, Israeli air strikes levelled more of the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs on Monday, sending clouds of debris billowing over the Lebanese capital.

Efforts to clinch a truce appeared to advance last week when US mediator Amos Hochstein declared significant progress after talks in Beirut before holding meetings in Israel and then returning to Washington DC.

“We are moving in the direction towards a deal but there are still some issues to address,” Israeli government spokesman David Mencer said, without elaborating.

Michael Herzog, the Israeli ambassador to the US, told Israel’s GLZ radio an agreement was close and “it could happen within days ... We just need to close the last corners,” according to a post on X by GLZ senior anchorman Efi Triger.

A second senior Lebanese official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Lebanon had not received any new Israeli demands from US mediators, who were describing the atmosphere as positive and saying “things are in progress”.

The official told Reuters a ceasefire could be clinched this week.

The conflict between Israel and Hezbollah spiralled into full-scale war in September when Israel went on the offensive, pounding wide areas of Lebanon with air strikes and sending troops into the south.

Israel has dealt major blows to Hezbollah, killing its leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and other top commanders and inflicting massive destruction in areas of Lebanon where the group holds sway.

Diplomacy has focused on restoring a ceasefire based on United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended a 2006 Hezbollah-Israel war.

It requires Hezbollah to pull its fighters back about 30km from the Israeli border.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said the test for any agreement would be in the enforcement of two main points.

“The first is preventing Hezbollah from moving southward beyond the Litani (River), and the second, preventing Hezbollah from rebuilding its force and rearming in all of Lebanon,” Saar said in broadcast remarks to the Israeli parliament.

Israel says its aim is to secure the return home of tens of thousands of people who fled from its north due to rocket attacks by Hezbollah, which opened fire in support of Hamas at the start of the Gaza war in October 2023.

Israel’s offensive has forced more than a million people from their homes in Lebanon.