Middle East latest: Israel insists on right to act against Hezbollah in any deal to end fighting

Israel’s defense minister says his country insists on the right to act militarily against Hezbollah in any agreement to end the fighting in Lebanon.

Lebanon’s government is likely to view any such demand as an infringement on its sovereignty, complicating efforts to end more than a year of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah that erupted into all-out war in September.

Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement Wednesday that “the condition for any political settlement in Lebanon is the preservation of the intelligence capability and the preservation of the (Israeli military’s) right to act and protect the citizens of Israel from Hezbollah.”

Lebanese officials mediating between Israel and Hezbollah have called for a return to United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 war between the sides.

It calls for Hezbollah militants and Israeli forces to withdraw from a buffer zone in southern Lebanon patrolled by U.N. peacekeepers and Lebanese troops.

U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein, who has spent months trying to broker a cease-fire, held a second round of talks on Wednesday with Lebanon’s parliament speaker, Nabih Berri, an ally of Hezbollah who has been mediating on their behalf.

Hochstein told reporters the talks had made “additional progress,” and that he would be heading to Israel “to try to bring this to a close, if we can.” He declined to say what the sticking points are.

Israeli strikes and combat in Lebanon have killed more than 3,500 people and wounded 15,000, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry. The war has displaced nearly 1.2 million people, or a quarter of Lebanon’s population.

On the Israeli side, 87 soldiers and 50 civilians, including some foreign farmworkers, have been killed by attacks involving rockets, drones and missiles. Hezbollah began firing on Israel the day after Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023 attack triggered the war in Gaza.

That attack killed some 1,200 people in Israel, mostly civilians, and another 250 were abducted. Around 100 hostages remain inside Gaza, at least a third of whom are believed to be dead. Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed nearly 44,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities.