Gallant says time running out for diplomatic solution with Hezbollah in Lebanon

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant told US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin on Monday that the window is closing for a diplomatic solution to the standoff with the Hezbollah movement in southern Lebanon. Gallant’s remarks came as White House Special envoy Amos Hochstein visited Israel to discuss the crisis on the northern border where Israeli troops have been exchanging missile fire with Hezbollah forces for months.

“The possibility for an agreed framework in the northern arena is running out,” Gallant told Austin in a phone call, according to a statement from his office. As long as Hezbollah continues to tie itself to the Hamas resistance movement in Gaza, where Israeli forces have been engaged for almost a year, “the trajectory is clear,” he said.

The visit by Hochstein, who is due to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, comes amid efforts to find a diplomatic path out of the crisis, which has forced tens of thousands on both sides of the occupation state’s northern border to leave their homes.

On Monday, Israeli media reported that the head of the army’s northern command had recommended a rapid border operation to create a buffer zone in southern Lebanon.

While the war in Gaza has been Israel’s main focus since the cross-border incursion by Hamas-led resistance fighters on 7 October last year, the precarious situation in the north has fuelled fears of a regional conflict that could drag the United States and Iran into its midst.

A missile barrage by Hezbollah on 8 October in “solidarity” with the Palestinians opened the latest phase of conflict and since then there have been daily exchanges of rockets, artillery fire and missiles, with Israeli jets striking deep into Lebanese territory, including the capital, Beirut. Hezbollah has said it does not seek a wider war at present but would fight if Israel launched one.

Israeli officials have said for months that Israel cannot accept the clearance of its northern border areas indefinitely but while troops remain committed to Gaza, there have also been questions about the military’s readiness for an invasion of southern Lebanon.

However, some of the hard-line members of the Israeli government have been pressing for action. Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, a long-time foe of Gallant, called today for him to be sacked.

Hundreds of Hezbollah fighters and dozens of Israeli soldiers and civilians have been killed in the exchanges of fire, which have left communities on both sides of the border as virtual ghost towns. The two sides came close to all-out war last month after Israeli forces killed a senior Hezbollah commander in Beirut in retaliation for a missile strike that killed 12 youngsters in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

On Monday, Israel’s defence ministry said that it had approved the distribution of 9,000 automatic rifles to civilian rapid response units in northern Israel and the Golan Heights.

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