UN resolution vital for Lebanon ceasefire, yet falls short, says US envoy

Visiting US envoy Amos Hochstein said Monday the basis of a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah was a 2006 United Nations resolution but that it would require more than just commitments from the warring parties.

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 states that only the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers should be deployed in southern Lebanon, while demanding the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanese territory.

Attention has focused on the resolution during the latest Israel-Hezbollah war that erupted last month after nearly a year of cross-border fire.

"The commitment that we have is to resolve this conflict based on (UN Resolution) 1701 -- that is what the solution is going to have to look like," Hochstein said on his first visit to Beirut since the war started.

Resolution "1701 was successful at ending the war in 2006 but we must be honest that no one did anything to implement it," he added, saying: "Both sides simply committing to 1701 is just not enough."

"We have to put things in place that would allow for confidence that it will be implemented for everyone," he told a press conference after meeting Lebanon's Hezbollah-allied speaker of parliament Nabih Berri.

"We have to know this is not just going to another round of conflict in a month or a year or two years," he said.

The US envoy was last in Beirut in August, after months of shuttle diplomacy between Lebanon and Israel with the aim of averting a full-blown conflict.

On Monday, he met with Berri, while Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit also visited the speaker's Beirut residence as part of a one-day trip.

Hochstein was also scheduled to meet Lebanon's Prime Minister Najib Mikati, who is pushing for a diplomatic solution tied to 1701.

The United States wants to end the conflict "as soon as possible," Hochstein told reporters.

"Tying Lebanon's future to other conflicts in the region was not and is not in the interest of the Lebanese people," he said, in a reference to the Gaza war.

  Border combat  

Israel has vowed to keep fighting Hezbollah until it secures its northern border to allow for the return of displaced communities.

Over the past 24 hours, it has struck branches of Al-Qard Al-Hassan, a Hezbollah-linked financial group, in Beirut, south Lebanon and the eastern Bekaa Valley, according to Lebanese state media.

The strikes marked an expansion of Israel's nearly month-long war with Hezbollah, as it seeks to degrade the group's ability to fund operations.

The raids came as the Iran-backed Hezbollah said it was engaging in close-range combat with Israeli troops in border villages amid an Israeli ground operation that started last month.

Lebanon's state-run National News Agency reported heavy clashes in the area on Monday as the Israeli army "tried to advance".

Last week, Mikati told AFP his country was ready to bolster the army's presence in south Lebanon if there is a ceasefire.

The cash-strapped government would start by recruiting an additional 1,500 troops into the army, and that as soon as any ceasefire is agreed they would mobilise soldiers from elsewhere in Lebanon, Mikati said.

Nearly a month of all-out war has killed at least 1,470 people in Lebanon, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese health ministry figures, though the real toll is likely higher.