By Humeyra Pamuk, Maya Gebeily and John Irish
DOHA/BEIRUT/PARIS (Reuters) -The United States does not want a protracted Israeli campaign in Lebanon, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Thursday, as efforts got underway to hold fresh talks over a ceasefire and hostage deal in Gaza.
A month into Israel’s military onslaught against the Iranian-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah, Blinken said he hoped Iran was getting a clear message that any further attacks on Israel risked its own interests, with the region awaiting the retaliation Israel has vowed for an Iranian missile barrage on Oct. 1.
Israel’s military chief said an end to the conflict with Hezbollah looked possible but gave few details.
U.S. and Israeli negotiators will gather in Doha to prepare the way for renewed talks on a Gaza ceasefire deal which would also entail the release of hostages in the Palestinian enclave, Qatar and Washington said.
Israel said its Mossad intelligence agency head David Barnea will travel to Doha on Sunday to try to restart the talks, and meet with CIA director William Burns and Qatar’s prime minister.
“The parties will discuss the various options for starting negotiations for the release of the hostages from Hamas captivity, against the backdrop of the latest developments,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said.
An Egyptian security delegation met with a delegation of Hamas leaders in Cairo as part of efforts to resume the Gaza ceasefire negotiations, Egypt’s state-affiliated Al Qahera News TV said on Thursday.
Hamas senior official Osama Hamdan told Lebanese pro-Iranian TV channel Al Mayadeen that there was no change in the group’s position. “The hostages held by the resistance will only return by stopping the aggression and completely withdrawing,” Hamdan said.
Previous attempts to reach a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal have failed.
Blinken, who held talks with Qatar’s prime minister, has been on his first trip to the region since Israel killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, a mastermind of the group’s Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel that triggered conflict across the Middle East. Washington, Israel’s close ally, has expressed hope his death can provide an impetus for an end to the fighting.
Israel unleashed its Lebanon offensive with the declared aim of securing the return home of tens of thousands of people evacuated from homes in northern Israel during a year of cross-border hostilities with Hezbollah.
Israel has used airstrikes to pound southern Lebanon, Beirut’s southern suburbs and the Bekaa Valley, and sent ground forces into areas near the border. Lebanese authorities say the campaign has killed more than 2,500 people and displaced more than 1 million people, spawning a humanitarian crisis.
“As Israel conducts operations to remove the threat to Israel and its people along the border with Lebanon, we have been very clear that this cannot lead, should not lead, to a protracted campaign,” Blinken said, speaking in Doha.
Blinken said the United States was working on a diplomatic deal which would allow civilians on both sides on the border to return to their homes.
Later, the head of Israel’s military said an end to the conflict with Hezbollah now looked possible.
“In the north (of Israel), there’s a possibility of reaching a sharp conclusion. We thoroughly dismantled Hezbollah’s senior chain of command,” Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi said in a video statement.
Blinken also said Israel should take steps to avoid civilian casualties and not endanger U.N. peacekeepers or Lebanese army troops.
Earlier on Thursday, an Israeli strike killed three Lebanese soldiers as they tried to evacuate wounded people from the border village of Yater, the Lebanese army said. There was no comment from the Israeli military.
The Lebanese army’s deployment into the south, where Hezbollah holds sway, is seen as vital to any diplomatic resolution to the war.
‘STORM’ OF DESTRUCTION
In Paris, a conference convened by France raised $200 million for the Lebanese military and $800 million in humanitarian aid.
“There needs to be a ceasefire in Lebanon. More damage, more victims, more strikes will not enable the end of terrorism or ensure security for everyone,” French President Emmanuel Macron said. He said the conference would support the recruitment of 6,000 Lebanese troops and provide the army with key supplies.
Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said a ceasefire was in Israel’s hands. “The storm we are currently witnessing…carries the seeds of total destruction, not only for our country, but for all human values,” he said.
Israeli attacks on Thursday included a strike on a vehicle on a highway from Beirut to the Bekaa Valley – one of Lebanon’s busiest roads. A security source said one person was killed.
The Israeli military said around 120 projectiles fired by Hezbollah had crossed into Israel.
In northern Israel, air raid sirens sounded in Nahariya and explosions could be heard as air defences fired to intercept rockets. Footage showed damage to a car, part of a projectile on the roadside, and a hole in the road where it struck.
The Alma Research and Education Center, an Israeli think tank, said 29 civilians have been killed in Israel so far as a result of Hezbollah attacks over the last year.
At least 25 Israeli soldiers have been killed in southern Lebanon since the start of the ground operation three weeks ago. The Israeli military said on Thursday that five more soldiers were killed and seven wounded there during combat.
Hezbollah opened fire on Oct. 8, 2023, in solidarity with its Palestinian allies in Gaza. Israel’s Gaza offensive has killed nearly 43,000 people, according to Gaza authorities, and laid waste to the territory. The Hamas-led attack which sparked it killed 1,200 people and resulted in another 250 being abducted, according to Israeli tallies.
At least 16 Palestinians were killed, including children, and 32 wounded in an Israeli strike on a school in Gaza’s Nuseirat camp, its Al-Awda hospital said.
The Israeli military said it had hit a Hamas command and control centre housed in a compound formerly used as a school in the Nuseirat area.
(Additional reporting by Ahmad Al Kerdi, Emilie Madi and Laila Bassam in Lebanon; Clauda Tanios and Tala Ramadan in Dubai, Kanishka Singh in Washington; Writing by Tom Perry and Alistair Bell; editing by Philippa Fletcher, Angus MacSwan and Diane Craft)
