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Hizbollah affiliates have lashed out at the US envoy who was seeking to mediate an agreement between the Lebanese movement and Israel, accusing Washington of complicity in the assassination of one of the militant group’s senior commanders.
The attacks on Amos Hochstein, who has been working for months to broker a deal between Hizbollah and Israel to end their cross-border clashes, underlines the challenges the US faces in easing tensions amid fears of an all-out war.
Al Akhbar, a Beirut-based newspaper aligned with Hizbollah, this week accused Hochstein of misleading Lebanese officials into thinking Israel would not attack Lebanon’s capital or its southern suburbs. But on Tuesday, Israel assassinated Fuad Shukr, the group’s military commander, in an air strike in a neighbourhood that is a Hizbollah stronghold.
Al Akhbar suggested Hochstein’s interlocutors “stop communicating” with him. It added that he was “a partner in the largest deception campaign that effectively contributed to the enemy’s strike” on Beirut.
The Israeli strike was in retaliation for last week’s deadly rocket attack on the occupied Golan Heights that killed 12 children and teenagers that Israel and the US blamed on Hizbollah.
Seeking guarantees that Hizbollah would not respond to an Israeli retaliation for the attack on Majdal Shams, Hochstein “informed officials that the Israeli strike would be outside Beirut and its suburbs”, it reported, It added that Lebanese officials should consider Hochstein “a full partner in the crime”.
“Targeting the airport, the suburbs or Beirut is a red line,” the newspaper reported the diplomat as telling Lebanese officials in a front-page story published the day of Shukr’s funeral.
But a Lebanese official involved in the talks between foreign diplomats and Hizbollah said Washington had not given Lebanon any guarantees about what Israel would or would not target and that no assurances were relayed to Hizbollah.
Another person familiar with the talks said it was far-fetched to suggest that Hochstein would directly promise Lebanon that Israel would not strike in Beirut.
However, two diplomats based in the region said there was a “general understanding” that Beirut’s southern suburbs would be spared in the tit-for-tat clashes that have characterised the simmering conflict between Israel and Hizbollah.
It began when Hizbollah started firing on Israel in “solidarity” with Hamas after the Palestinian group’s October 7 attack triggered the war in Gaza.
“Hizbollah is directly attacking Hochstein and the rest of us to try and deflect blame from their major security failure,” one of those diplomats said.
“The fact is, Israel embarrassed Hizbollah and Iran by striking in the heart of areas they thought were beyond enemy surveillance. And they need someone to blame.”
Asked for an official comment, Hizbollah said “We do not believe the Americans, even if this message was transmitted.”
While not directly controlled by Hizbollah, Al Akhbar is heavily influenced by it and offers clues to the group’s thinking, often publishing exclusive interviews with its senior political and military officials.
Western diplomats are holding critical discussions around the Middle East this week to try to head off a full-blown regional war, following the assassinations of both Shukr and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran hours later.
Both Iran and Hizbollah have vowed to retaliate. The US responded by deploying additional forces to the region to help defend Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has claimed responsibility for the air strike that killed Shukr. But it has neither confirmed nor denied any link to the assassination of Haniyeh.
For months, Hochstein has shuttled between Washington, Lebanon and Israel in an effort to broker a diplomatic solution to end the violence. But the talks have remained gridlocked.
Israel has continued to demand that Hizbollah pull back its forces from the vicinity of its border with Lebanon. But Hizbollah insists it will not agree to a deal until there is a ceasefire in Gaza, a demand its leader Hassan Nasrallah reiterated this week.
Additional reporting by Felicia Schwartz in Washington
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