Israel is considering a short-term cease-fire in Lebanon that could pause the war against Iran-backed Hezbollah, three Israeli officials said on Wednesday.
The Israeli government has yet to formally sign off on the truce, and the discussions around it remained fluid. It could be discussed by Israel’s high-level security cabinet when it meets on Wednesday night, one of the officials said.
The United States hailed rare talks on Tuesday between Israel and Lebanon as a “historic milestone” that it hoped would bring lasting peace. It is unclear whether Hezbollah would go along with a cease-fire even if Israel and the Lebanese government agreed on one.
Iran has insisted that its current two-week truce with the United States should extend to Lebanon, and the Trump administration has appeared eager to secure a détente between Israel and Hezbollah. A cease-fire in Lebanon would remove one obstacle in talks to convert the U.S.-Iran truce into a durable peace.
President Trump said last week that he had asked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel to scale back attacks in Lebanon. Israel did stop attacks on the Lebanese capital, Beirut, but kept up strikes on Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.
The Lebanese government has been notified by the United States that Israel was considering a short-term truce after the Israel-Lebanon talks in Washington on Tuesday, a senior Lebanese official said.
The Lebanese government does not speak for Hezbollah and the group had yet to respond to the idea, the Lebanese official added.
Two of the Israeli officials said the cease-fire could begin as early as Thursday and last about a week.
The Israeli and Lebanese officials all spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the sensitive diplomacy publicly. A spokesman for the Israeli prime minister could not immediately be reached for comment.
Israel launched its sweeping military campaign in Lebanon in early March, just days after the U.S.-Israeli air war with Iran started. It began after Hezbollah fired a volley of rockets at northern Israel in solidarity with its patron, Iran.
An Israeli ground invasion in southern Lebanon has forced more than one million people to flee their homes. More than 2,000 people have been killed, according to the Lebanese authorities, including both civilians and Hezbollah fighters.
Ronen Bergman is a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine, based in Tel Aviv.
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