Lebanon has rejected a ‘ceasefire proposal’ put forward by US-Israeli envoy Amos Hochstein that amounts to a demand to surrender sovereignty to Israel.

The US sent Israel-born Hochstein, a national and energy security adviser to US president Joe Biden and a former IDF soldier, to Beirut with what Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar described as an ‘offer of surrender’ demanding that Lebanon sign up to a revised version of UN resolution 1701 that would involve Lebanon giving up control of several kilometres of territory north of the Litani river, which the Israeli right has long coveted – withdrawing its forces to allow Israel to operate militarily in southern Lebanon and to allow its air forces to operate freely over all Lebanese territory at will, as well as requiring Lebanon to abandon its demand for an end to Israel’s genocide in Gaza as a condition of any ceasefire and to accept the placement of foreign troops along its border with Syria.

Hochstein reportedly sent messages to Lebanese government officials telling them that Lebanon is:

not in a position to discuss much, and that its failure to accept the proposal means that the war will continue and will be more severe.

Hochstein was accompanied by German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock, a fanatically pro-Israel politician who said, as Israel burned injured civilians to death in Gaza, that Israel would not ‘shy away’ from its support of Israel and that civilians were not protected by international law if ‘Hamas’ was near them. Baerbock repeated the same chilling threat to Lebanese civilians, even though Israeli forces are the ones that have been shown to actually use innocents as ‘human shields’, telling the Lebanese government that: The deal would have given Israel control of territory it has so far been unable to take militarily, incurring heavy losses and being repeatedly repulsed. A Lebanese official told Al-Akhbar that Hochstein ‘came to intimidate and spread terror’: Hochstein came to intimidate and to spread terror, and he was clear in everything he said that his country and Israel refuse to return to Resolution 1701 in its current form. He said explicitly that this formula is a thing of the past.

Nabih Berri, the Amal-based speaker of the Lebanese parliament, told Hochstein that Lebanon rejects any amendments to 1701 and that the US needed to find ways to make Israel respect it. Later the same day, Israel dropped heavy bombs on residential areas in Amal, a move described by Jewish Grayzone journalist Max Blumenthal as the IDF ‘mafia enforcers’ punishing those who refuse to bow to its demands. Israel has violated resolution 1701 more than 30,000 times since it was put in place in 2006.