Netanyahu vows no rest until northern residents return amid US ceasefire efforts

Israel won’t rest until the residents in the north can return safely to their homes, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday amid reports that the US was close to securing a ceasefire to the year-long constrained IDF-Hezbollah war.

"I cannot detail everything we are doing,” Netanyahu said in a statement to the Israeli public,  “but I can tell you one thing: we are determined to return residents from the North safely to their homes.

“We are inflicting blows on Hezbollah it did not imagine. We do it with strength; we do it with guile. I promise you one thing - we will not rest until they come home,” he said.

Netanyahu spoke before he was scheduled to depart for the United Nations, where he plans to defend Israel before the UN General Assembly, which has questioned its right to self-defense against Iranian proxy groups, Hamas and Hezbollah.

Adding fuel

In that last week Israel has ratcheted up its military campaign against Hezbollah promoting an intense push for a diplomatic resolution that would restore calm along Israel’s northern border in an attempt to avoid an all out war.

US President Joe Biden told ABC's "The View” that An all-out war is possible, but I think there's also the opportunity - we're still in play to have a settlement that can fundamentally change the whole region.”

The United States is spearheading a new diplomatic effort to end hostilities in both Gaza and Lebanon, linking the two conflicts as part of a single initiative, six sources familiar with the initiative told Reuters.

Details are being hammered out at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, according to two Lebanese officials, two Western diplomats, a source familiar with the thinking of armed Lebanese group Hezbollah and a source briefed on the talks.

The White House National Security Council did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Three Israeli officials told Reuters that the United States and France were working on ceasefire proposals but that no significant process had been made so far.

Unifying fronts

It would be the first time the two fronts are linked as part of a US diplomatic push, the sources said.

The deal may eventually lead to the release of hostages seized by Palestinian armed group Hamas in the attack on Israel on Oct. 7 last year that sparked hostilities across the Middle East, according to a senior Lebanese official, the source familiar with Hezbollah's thinking and the source briefed on the talks.

The United States has sought to contain tensions in the Middle East since the October 7 attack.

The senior Lebanese official and the source familiar with Hezbollah's thinking told Reuters that Hezbollah was "open to any settlement that would include both Gaza and Lebanon."

The second Lebanese official said that it would be "impossible" to stop the conflicts without putting together "a package."

In a sign of the accelerating diplomacy, Lebanon's caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, said late on Monday that he would travel to New York for meetings on recent developments. He had not been previously planning to attend.