France and U.S. are working on a plan for a 21-day ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah

France’s foreign minister said Wednesday that his country and the United States are working on a proposal for a 21-day ceasefire “to allow for negotiations” in the escalating conflict between Israel and Hezbollah that has killed more than 600 people in Lebanon in recent days.
Jean-Noel Barrot told the UN Security Council during a meeting about the conflict that the proposal would be released shortly. “We are counting on both parties to accept it without delay,” he said.
Barrot said France and the U.S. had consulted with the sides on “final parameters for a diplomatic way out of this crisis,” adding that “war is not unavoidable.”
Earlier Wednesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the U.S. administration was “intensely engaged with a number of partners to deescalate tensions in Lebanon and to work to get a ceasefire agreement that would have so many benefits for all concerned.”
U.S. deputy ambassador to the UN Robert Wood encouraged the council to support the diplomatic efforts but didn’t offer specifics about the plan.
“We are working with other countries on a proposal that we hope will lead to calm and enable discussions to a diplomatic solution,” he said.
Blinken and other advisers to President Joe Biden have spent the past three days at and on the sidelines of the annual UN General Assembly meeting of world leaders in New York lobbying other countries to support the plan, according to U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic conversations.
U.S. President Joe Biden addresses the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly, Sept. 24, 2024, at UN headquarters. (Manuel Balce Ceneta / AP Photo)
Americans hope such a ceasefire could lead to longer-term stability along the border between Israel and Lebanon. Months of Israeli and Hezbollah exchanges of fire across the border drove tens of thousands of people from their homes on both sides of the border, and escalated attacks this week have rekindled fears of a broader war in the Middle East.
Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan and senior advisers Brett McGurk and Amos Hochstein have been meeting with Middle East allies in New York and have been in touch with Israeli officials about the proposal, one of the U.S. officials said. McGurk and Hochstein have been the White House’s chief interlocutors with Israel and Lebanon since the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas, another Iranian-backed militant group.
An Israeli official said Netanyahu has given the green light to pursue a possible deal, but only if it includes the return of Israeli civilians to their homes. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were discussing behind-the-scenes diplomacy.
A Lebanese official called them “very serious efforts,” and when asked about the possibility of a halt in the fighting taking effect Thursday, he said it was “not wishful thinking.”
Hezbollah has maintained that it will not halt its fire until there’s a truce in Gaza. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to share details with the media, said Lebanon still does not accept separating the fronts in the Palestinian territory and Lebanon but would not say if or how the proposal might deal with Gaza.
Earlier Wednesday, Biden warned in an appearance on ABC’s “The View” that “an all-out war is possible” but thinks the opportunity also exists “to have a settlement that can fundamentally change the whole region.”
Biden suggested that getting Israel and Hezbollah to agree to a ceasefire could help achieve a cessation of hostilities between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. That war is approaching the one-year mark after Hamas raids in southern Israel on Oct. 7 killed about 1,200 people. Israel responded with an offensive that has since killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials, who do not provide a breakdown of civilians and fighters in their count.
“It’s possible and I’m using every bit of energy I have with my team … to get this done,” Biden said. “There’s a desire to see change in the region.”
The U.S. and other international mediators have tried and failed for months to broker a ceasefire in Gaza that also would release hostages held by Hamas.
The U.S. government also raised the pressure with additional sanctions Wednesday targeting more than a dozen ships and other entities it says were involved in illicit shipments of Iranian petroleum for the financial benefit of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah.
Meanwhile, the chief of Israel’s army said Wednesday that the military is preparing for a possible ground operation in Lebanon as Hezbollah hurled dozens of projectiles into Israel, including a missile aimed at Tel Aviv that was the militant group’s deepest strike yet.
Blinken has been urging both Israel and Hezbollah to step back from their intensifying conflict, saying that all-out war would be disastrous for the region and that escalation was not the way to get people back to their homes on the Israel-Lebanon border.
“It would be through a diplomatic agreement that has forces pulled back from the border, create a secure environment, people return home,” Blinken told NBC News. “That’s what we’re driving toward because while there’s a very legitimate issue here, we don’t think that war is the solution.”
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AP reporters Zeke Miller and Darlene Superville in Washington, Josef Federman in Jerusalem and Bassem Mroue in Beirut contributed.