(Bloomberg) -- US Secretary of State Antony Blinken took off Monday for his 11th visit to the Mideast in his so-far unsuccessful effort to engineer a cease-fire between Israel and Iran-backed militants since the attack on Israel more than a year ago.
With Blinken planning stops in Israel and “other countries in the Mideast,” according to the State Department, it may be the last chance for the Biden administration to secure a pause in Israel’s multi-front conflict with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon before the US presidential election on Nov. 5.
US envoy Amos Hochstein has already landed in Beirut, where he told reporters “we are either going to reach a solution or things are going to escalate out of control.” Hochstein spoke Monday after meeting Lebanon’s parliamentary speaker, Nabih Berri, a key interlocutor between the West and Hezbollah.
Hochstein’s visit came after Israel widened its bombing campaign in Lebanon over the weekend, targeting financial institutions it says help fund Hezbollah’s military operations.
“This is not a regular bank,” Udi Levi, former head of economic warfare at Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, told Channel 12 television. “It is a very, very central body for running Hezbollah’s economic system, with 400,000 customers.” He said that Israel has “relayed a message both to Hezbollah and to Iran: ‘Your economic system is on the table.”’
Daniel Hagari, spokesman for the Israeli military, said Monday that a Hezbollah bunker under a hospital in Beirut’s suburbs stores at least $500 million in cash and gold. In response, Sahel hospital has invited media organizations for a tour on Tuesday morning to prove the allegation wrong, according to Lebanon’s state news agency NNA.
Four people, including a child, were killed in a strike near Rafik Hariri hospital in Beirut’s southern suburbs, according to the Lebanese health ministry. Al Jadeed TV, a Lebanese channel, reported Monday that the Israelis have carried out 15 airstrikes in the southern suburbs.
Israel has relentlessly targeted the area — where Hezbollah has a known presence — as well as towns and villages just over the border. Hezbollah has been firing missiles into northern Israel since the start of the war in Gaza, and stepped up its barrage following Israel’s escalation.
President Joe Biden’s decision to send Hochstein this week “is signaling the urgency of a lasting cease-fire in Lebanon,” said Burcu Ozcelik, senior research fellow for Middle East security at the Royal United Services Institute in London. “Hezbollah and its backers in Iran are likely seeking a carefully orchestrated next step — how to deescalate to a threshold where Hezbollah will be able to salvage its weapons stockpiles and rank-and-file fighters.”
Blinken is pursuing a cease-fire in Gaza and, even more ambitiously, a “day-after” plan for future governance of the strip. John Kirby, spokesman for the US National Security Council, told reporters Monday that Blinken has been “working on day-after options for months” though the US hasn’t come up with final ideas for what security might look like in Gaza — “how it would be comprised, where it would be deployed, who would run it.”
The US maintains that Israel’s killing last week of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar may open the way for a breakthrough, even though Hamas leaders and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu both vowed to fight on.
Package Deal
An Israeli official told Bloomberg News that, after more than a year of war, Israel is open to a package deal that would calm the front in southern Lebanon, release hostages held by Hamas in Gaza and allow more aid into the Palestinian territory.
Officials in Israel have said they want United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 — which is supposed to keep Hezbollah away from the Israeli border — stringently implemented by Lebanese authorities and for UN peacekeepers to report more reliably on violations by the militant group.
But Israel has given no indication it will cease surveillance overflights in Lebanon — also a breach of 1701 — and has indicated it wants the right to strike militarily if Hezbollah attempts to approach its border. That would enable the tens of thousands of Israelis who have left northern communities to feel safe enough to return home, a key objective of Israel’s escalation of military activities. About 1.2 million people in Lebanon are also displaced.
“The situation has to be that Hezbollah will lose the ability to threaten Israel, that Israel will cease fearing to respond,” Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said in a weekend interview with the country’s Channel 14 TV.
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati has said that while there is no alternative to resolution 1701, it may be possible to agree to “new understandings that could govern” how it is implemented.
Both Hezbollah and Hamas are designated terrorist organizations by the US and many other countries.
Israel’s security cabinet convened Sunday to discuss its retaliation against Iran for a missile attack almost three weeks ago, though the government made no announcement of what action it might take. The meeting ended with a statement that spoke only of a prospective deal to free hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.
“Among the goals of this war, at the highest levels, is the desire to leverage it for maximum success in returning the hostages,” Science Minister Gila Gamliel, a member of the security cabinet, told Israel’s Army Radio.
About 100 hostages are believed to be still in captivity in Gaza, a key sticking point to ending the war, although a number are assumed dead. Israeli forces have appeared to overrun Hamas at various points in the conflict, but have returned to the north of the territory in recent weeks to carry out more attacks.
The conflict in Gaza began on Oct. 7 of last year when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people and abducting 250. More than 42,000 Palestinians have been killed in the yearlong war, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in the territory.
--With assistance from Ethan Bronner, Omar Tamo, Michelle Jamrisko, Courtney McBride, Alisa Odenheimer and Sherif Tarek.
(Updates with Sahel hospital response, strike near another hospital, starting in sixth paragraph.)
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