White House proposes 21-day cease-fire deal between Israel and Hezbollah

The White House announced Wednesday evening a proposal for a temporary 21-day cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah.

Top Biden officials worked with France and Arab allies in the region to draw up the agreement this week during the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

The deal is supported by a range of major U.S. allies, including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the White House said.

“During those 21 days, we will negotiate toward a potential resolution of the [broader] conflict,” a senior administration official said.

The announcement by the White House didn’t go into detail about the proposal, but a person briefed on the text said the agreement would pause the fighting, require the repositioning of Israeli forces along the Israel-Lebanon border and allow Israelis to return to their homes in the north.

“Our expectation is that when the government of Lebanon and the government of Israel accept this, this will carry and be implemented as a ceasefire on both sides of the blue line,” the senior administration official said.

The official said President Joe Biden met with French President Emmanuel Macron at the United Nations on Wednesday to finalize the proposal.

U.S. officials are optimistic that Israel and Hezbollah will agree. But Hezbollah is still likely to ramp up retaliatory efforts against Israel following weeks of aerial bombardment in Lebanon.

Since Oct. 7, the U.S. has tried to ease tensions between Israel and Hezbollah in an attempt to try and prevent the outbreak of a wider regional war. Amos Hochstein, one of the president’s closest advisers, has been leading that effort.

The U.S. began envisioning this cease-fire agreement last month when talks stalled to halt the war in Gaza.

Hezbollah has long said it would only agree to a deal with Israel if a cease-fire was first reached in the Palestinian enclave. But once talks faltered in August, Israel moved to refocus its military campaign in the north, hoping it would pressure Hezbollah to agree to negotiations.

Over the last two weeks, Israel has launched a military campaign aimed at degrading Hezbollah’s military capabilities. Although it has not formally acknowledged whether it played a role, Israel is believed to have been behind the detonation of Hezbollah members’ pagers and walkie-talkies last week. This week, it bombarded Hezbollah’s positions in Lebanon with airstrikes. Lebanese officials say hundreds of people have died and thousands have been injured as a result.

If Hezbollah and Israel agree to the deal, it could help re-start negotiations on Gaza, a senior administration official said.

The official said they didn’t want to speculate on how this would impact efforts to free the hostages, but said that this could “buy some time and space to pursue” a bigger deal with Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who they said clearly has “been hoping that there’d be a broader kind of regional conflict and all these other groups would join in.”