Strategic Affairs Minister Dermer reportedly followed that trip with one to Washington; US special envoy Hochstein said planning visit to Lebanon, confident agreement can be reached
Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer secretly visited Russia last week, Army Radio reported Sunday, in what appeared to be part of Israel’s efforts to reach a ceasefire in Lebanon where it is battling the terror group Hezbollah.
Dermer’s office said that it had no comment on the report.
Dermer then flew to Washington on Saturday night for talks with US officials, the Ynet outlet reported.
Russia is a major player in Syria, and its cooperation in a diplomatic arrangement to end fighting between Israel and Hezbollah could be an important piece of a deal that keeps the Iran-backed group from rearming.
Syria, an ally of Tehran, is a key supply route of weapons from Iran to the Lebanon-based terror group Hezbollah, which Israel says has suffered massive damage to its leadership, infrastructure, and arsenal as a result of the Israeli military offensive. That ground operation was launched after 11 months of near-daily rocket fire and drone attacks — at times deadly — which caused the evacuation of some 60,000 residents from areas close to the northern border.
Meanwhile, Lebanese politicians told the Hezbollah-affiliated outlet Al-Akhbar that US special envoy Amos Hochstein told them he assured the country’s Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and Prime Minister Najib Mikati last week that he would arrive in the country within ten days.
However, other unnamed sources told the outlet that Lebanon has not been given any official date for Hochstein to arrive, with one source casting doubt on the envoy’s ability to achieve anything after coming up emptyhanded for the past year. The source noted that Israel has said it will expand its ground operation in southern Lebanon and that Iran is believed to be posed to launch a third direct attack on Israel.
Meanwhile, US President-elect Donald Trump has informed the Biden administration that he expects to see progress in the efforts to reach a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, the Ynet news site reported Saturday.
Citing anonymous US officials, the report added that Hochstein is confident that the two sides will be able to reach an agreement and bring an end to more than a year of cross-border fighting and Israel’s ground operation in southern Lebanon.
On Friday the Lebanese MTV outlet cited unnamed US sources as saying that Trump told Hochstein to continue his work and “make a deal with Lebanon.”
US officials have said they will make a final push to reach deals on the conflicts between Israel and the Hamas and Hezbollah terror groups, although it is unclear how much leverage they have over Israel and other actors in the region now focused on the incoming Trump administration.
In October, ahead of the November 5 presidential election, Trump pledged to end the “suffering and destruction in Lebanon.”
“I want to see the Middle East return to real peace, a lasting peace, and we will get it done properly so it doesn’t repeat itself every 5 or 10 years,” he added at the time.
A Russian delegation visited Israel on October 24. A source in Netanyahu’s office told The Times of Israel that the Russian delegation’s visit was not connected to hostages held by Hamas in Gaza since October 7, 2023, when the Palestinian terror group led a massive cross-border attack on southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people and abducting 251 hostages to Gaza and triggering an ongoing war there.
Hezbollah and other Iranian proxies across the Middle East also then began to attack Israel.
The ongoing multifront war dragged Israel and Iran into direct confrontation. Iran has already twice directly fired rockets and drones at Israel, in April and at the beginning of October, drawing Israeli retaliation. After the last attack, Israel responded with strikes on Iranian air defense systems and military factories. Iran has since vowed to respond.
The attacks on northern Israel since October 2023 have resulted in the deaths of 41 civilians. In addition, 62 IDF soldiers and reservists have died in cross-border skirmishes and in the ensuing ground operation launched in southern Lebanon in late September. Two soldiers have been killed in a drone attack from Iraq, and there have also been several attacks from Syria, without any injuries.
The IDF estimates that some 3,000 Hezbollah operatives have been killed in the conflict. Around 100 members of other terror groups, along with hundreds of civilians, have also been reported killed in Lebanon.
As reported by The Times of Israel