“As for Lebanon, we are working very hard and making progress in reaching understandings about what it would take to effectively implement UN Security Council Resolution 1701,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at a joint press conference with US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yeol on Thursday afternoon. “That would form the basis for a diplomatic resolution to the crisis.”

“It is critical that we ensure that we have clarity from Lebanon and Israel on what Resolution 1701 would require in order to be effectively implemented: the withdrawal of Hezbollah forces from the border; the deployment of the Lebanese Armed Forces; the authorities under which they would operate; and the appropriate implementation mechanism,” Blinken stressed.

“I can tell you that based on my recent visit to the region and the work that is underway now, we have made good progress on these understandings,” Secretary Blinken added. “We still have more work to do, but that is what is necessary to reach a diplomatic solution, including through a ceasefire.”

An American official confirmed to Al-Quds on Thursday, on condition of anonymity, that Hezbollah has become convinced of the necessity of separating any agreement on the Lebanese front from what is happening in Gaza, and that it now considers that the battle to support Gaza ended with the beginning of the war in Lebanon at the end of last September.

Regarding Israel’s war on Gaza, Blinken said at the same press conference on Thursday, “I can tell you a few things. First, we and our team are closely following Israel’s responsibilities to uphold and adhere to the letter of the law, and we have jointly sent the law (in a joint letter from Blinken and Austin on November 14) to our Israeli counterparts regarding the provision of humanitarian assistance. There has been real progress, but it is not enough, and we are working on a daily basis to make sure that Israel is doing what it needs to do to ensure that this assistance reaches the people who need it inside Gaza. It is not enough to send trucks into Gaza; it is vital that what those trucks carry is distributed effectively inside Gaza.”

“There’s another thing on this; one of the things that has been successful in recent months has been the polio vaccination campaign for hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children in Gaza. But in order to complete that campaign, we have to complete a second round of vaccinations, and those vaccinations have to be done within a certain time frame of the first round of vaccinations. It’s imperative that that be done in the coming days, and we look to Israel to facilitate that process,” Blinken added.

“Israel has made clear for many months that its strategic objectives in Gaza — to ensure that the events and horrors of October 7 are not repeated — were to dismantle Hamas’s military capabilities, its organized military capabilities, and to eliminate the leaders responsible for October 7,” Blinken said. “So those objectives have been achieved, and the focus now must be on ending the war, while ensuring that people who need help with food, medicine, and other basic humanitarian needs get the help they need.”

American officials hint that, in conjunction with the intensive American diplomatic efforts aimed at stopping the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip, prominent Arab movements have intensified during the past few days, and that these movements come in light of the escalation of violence, which reflects a growing desire to achieve a comprehensive calm that puts an end to the escalating tensions and contributes to protecting civilians and sparing the region further crises.

But experts point out that despite the importance of these American efforts, nothing has been achieved despite the passage of a full year since the war, and that the reason behind not reaching a result is that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected any proposal for a ceasefire, especially before the American elections, with the aim of not giving the Democratic candidate, Kamala Harris, any political gain in front of Arab and Muslim voters.

Netanyahu's statements also indicate without a doubt that he does not want to end the war in Gaza or Lebanon, and prefers to use more force to subjugate the Palestinians and Lebanese to the Israeli vision for the future of the region.