Background Press Call on the Situation on the Border Between Israel and Lebanon
Via Teleconference
9:33 P.M. EDT
MODERATOR: Good evening, everyone. Thanks so much for joining, especially on such short notice. As a reminder, this call is on background, attributable to senior administration officials. The contents of this call are embargoed until the completion of the call.
For your awareness, not for your reporting, on the call today we have [senior administration official] and [senior administration official].
We have limited time, so I’ll turn it over to [senior administration officials] for a few words at the top and then take as many questions as we can.
[Senior administration officials], I’ll turn it over to you.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Thank you, Eduardo. Thanks, all, for joining. And again, I know it’s a late evening and short notice, so appreciate it.
Over the last 48 hours or so, the President and senior advisors have been engaging with the parties in the conflict along the Israel-Lebanon Blue Line and with partners around the world — both partners in the Gulf and the Middle East, as well as with partners in Europe and Asia — to reach a consensus for a call for a ceasefire that you have seen that we are issuing tonight.
The ceasefire will be for 21 days, along the Blue Line. During those 21 days, the parties — we will negotiate towards a potential resolution of the conflict that has been ongoing since Hezbollah launched the attack on October 8th, and to reach a comprehensive agreement along the Blue Line that allows for residents to return to their homes in both Lebanon and Israel.
This has been an all-out effort by the administration to reach this moment. We are grateful to both the Israelis and Lebanese government in working tirelessly to get to this moment.
This is a call for a ceasefire in Lebanon. During those 21 days, while we’re negotiating in Lebanon and Israel, we will also work with our partners on seeing what we have done over the last several months consistently. And I’ll let [senior administration official] talk about the negotiations in Gaza.
But the 21-day ceasefire, I want to stress, is for a ceasefire in Lebanon and across the Blue Line only. The discussions towards a potential full agreement along the Blue Line will be accompanied also by negotiations in Gaza.
And I’ll turn it over to [senior administration official] for comment on that.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Yeah, thank you. Just briefly to reemphasize, I think this is a very important statement joined by — together with the G7 and together with three of our very close Arab partners with important interests in Lebanon.
As you will see, there is a reference in the joint statement to U.N. Security Council Resolution 2735, which relates to Gaza. That resolution, just for awareness and reminder, is the three-phase hostage deal that the President laid out in May. That is what that Security Council resolution emphasized.
And of course we recognize, and the statement says explicitly, that opening up diplomatic space for these 21 days to pursue the agreement in Lebanon, of course we hope that it might also open up diplomatic space as well to galvanize efforts on the very important primary effort we have to bring the hostages home.
So that references the three-phase deal that we’ve been working on. But this is an important breakthrough on the Lebanon side, given all that has gone on there, particularly over the last few weeks. But, you know, we will try to use the space that it provides wisely on all fronts.
MODERATOR: Thanks. With that, we have time for a couple of questions. First up, we’ll go to Zeke Miller.
Q Thanks so much. You just called this a breakthrough. What assurances do you have from the Israelis and from the Lebanese government and Hezbollah that they will actually accept this temporary ceasefire and that you can actually get a sustainable period of calm, that you can have that diplomatic space that you say you need? I mean, are you prematurely declaring victory here? Thank you.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Well, the parties are going to respond for themselves to the call, but I can share that we have had this conversation with the parties and felt this was the right moment to issue the call based on our discussions. They are familiar with the text. And again, we’ll let them speak to their actions of accepting the deal in the coming hours.
MODERATOR: Next up, we’ll go to the line of MJ Lee.
Q Hi. Can you talk to us a little bit about why 21 days? And also, when you were saying before, “We will negotiate towards” a comprehensive agreement, do you expect that the U.S. will be —
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Can you speak up a little bit? It’s hard to hear you — if you don’t mind.
Q Yeah. When you say “We will negotiate towards” a comprehensive agreement, do you expect that the U.S. is going to be as heavily engaged as you all have been for the duration of those three weeks as you have been in the last couple of days?
And my first question was if you could explain how you got to 21 days for the duration of this recommended ceasefire.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Sure. We — 21 days, really, is we were looking for a period of time that would be a sustained space that was long enough to allow for negotiations in a realistic basis to be able to reach a complicated agreement during that period of time. So that’s why 21 days. There’s no real magic formula to it. It was something that we felt was long enough to sustain it and one that the parties could agree to.
Second, on the negotiations: Look, over the last several months, since October 8th, we have been engaging consistently with the parties in Lebanon and in Israel to see what we can do to articulate an outline, an agreement that would enable returning to calm and security along that line. And it was always going to have to be more than just a ceasefire, because it would be unacceptable for Israeli residents to return to their homes in the north if there weren’t security arrangements on the Lebanese side that prevented Hezbollah from sitting on the border and ensuring that they were secure from a October 7th-like attack in the future.
So, we have had those discussions for quite some time. We expect to build on those — on the premise of the conversation we’ve had over the last few months, and to turn that into a comprehensive agreement.
Again, that is the space that we’re creating with this ceasefire. And then, no guarantees, but we’re hopeful that this will give us the time necessary to achieve it.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I’ll just emphasize: The objective is an agreement, along the lines that we’ve been working on, that would give citizens and civilians the confidence, the security arrangements to return to their homes. That’s an objective we very much share with the Israelis. We want to see civilians return on both sides of the border. And the objective is to conclude that agreement within this 21-day period.
MODERATOR: We have time for two more questions. Next up, we’ll go to Alex Ward.
Q Yeah, very quickly, are you now (inaudible) that Israel’s strategy of escalate to deescalate worked because it led to this moment? And I’ll leave it that. Thanks.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Look, we have been clear for a long time that we want to identify moments of opportunity to be able to reach a resolution here. We have consistently said that, ultimately, a solution to bringing the residents home safely and having the security for a long period of time would only be achievable through a diplomatic solution.
We believe, regardless of what has happened on the battlefield over the last several days, weeks, the moment we feel is now to achieve that diplomatic resolution to get there. Military means on their own will not be able to achieve that. That has been our publicly stated policy, and I think both sides agree with that notion, which is why we are, today, at the moment that we’re in.
MODERATOR: Our last question will go to David Sanger.
Q Thanks very much. I’m trying to understand who you think is going to agree to the 21-day ceasefire. Do we believe the Hezbollah leadership and Nasrallah is behind this? Or do we believe, in the end, that he would not sign up for it? And who would then — what are you hearing from the Israeli government specifically on this?
What I’m trying to get at is how strongly we should all suggest in our stories that this is going to come to pass and why you think, if it does, it builds you some momentum for Gaza.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: So, I’ll let [senior administration official] answer the last piece on Gaza.
But, look, we negotiate consistently. We negotiate and we deal with the sovereign state of Lebanon, with its leadership. We have been doing that for months. For the last 48 hours, we have been doing that non-stop, all day and night.
They are responsible in speaking for the state of Lebanon and for everything that happens on that side of the border. Who they negotiate with and deal with as far as the non-state actors in Lebanon, that is — I think they’re aware of the responsibility that they have to speak on behalf of the country, for the state.
So I think you know how this works. So our expectation is when the government of Lebanon and when the government of Israel both accept this, this will carry and — to be implemented as a ceasefire on both sides of the Blue Line for the period of the 21 days.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I’ll just say, David, on — again, this is a deal about Lebanon, so how could it poss- — might it impact the hostage talks? I don’t want to speculate too much. I will say a couple things.
I mean, Sinwar, we know he’s a decision-maker for Hamas. Obviously, we’ve seen throughout the hostage talks, everything has to go into him. He also wants a regional war. That’s something he has basically said in a statement two weeks ago, praising the Houthi ballistic missile attack. He talked about a long-term war of attrition. I think he’s been hoping that there’d be a broader, kind of regional conflict and all these other groups would join in. And frankly, we’ve done an awful lot — an awful lot over the last 11 months to ensure that actually does not happen. We’ve done that through military means, through diplomatic means, through back-channels and everything else.
And I think buying some time and space in Lebanon, and particularly if we can conclude this very important agreement — which would benefit the people on both sides of the border, and I think we have a lot of that worked out — it would buy us some time and space to try to pursue an arrangement in Gaza along the lines of the hostage deal we’ve been discussing.
And if Sinwar understands there is not going to be a broader regional conflict, there really is a choice here: You do the deal, release the hostages, and you get an awful lot of calm in Gaza. That deal is on the table. It means that the war stops in Gaza. It means massive humanitarian relief. Everything we talked about, that’s very much on the table, kind of ready to go, if we can work out some of the arrangements on the release of hostages and exchange of prisoners.
So, I mean, we’ll have to see. But I think this does — it does shake things up, and we’ll try to use the time and space — and that’s why the statement talks about diplomatic space — wisely, again, focused primarily on Lebanon, but we’ll see if it opens up some possibilities on the Gaza side, because we do need to bring the hostages home, and we remain very focused on that.
I’d say the President, throughout the week here in New York, was focused on this constantly in almost every conversation he had with world leaders. We had a very important pull-aside this afternoon with President Macron of France, where the President — the two presidents and our teams were able to work out some of the arrangements that we were discussing here throughout the day.
And of course, President Biden and President Macron issued a joint statement tonight, commensurate with the broader statement by the G7, UAE, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia.
So, a lot going on. Of course, the President remains deeply engaged in this as the days continue, including as we continue the week here in New York. The President is back in Washington; we’re all here with Tony Blinken, the whole team, to continue to work.
MODERATOR: Thanks, everyone. That’s all the time we have for today. We’re glad to take your follow-up questions as they come.
As a reminder, this call was on background, attributable to senior administration officials, and the embargo is now lifted. Thanks so much for joining.
9:48 P.M. EDT
