France circulates revised resolution on conflict

France today circulated a revised UN resolution calling for an immediate cessation of Israeli-Hezbollah hostilities and spelling of the conditions for a permanent cease-fire and lasting solution to the current crisis between Israel and Lebanon.

The new draft seeks to end the fighting that began on July 12 and set out the principles for peace in broad-brushstrokes.

It reiterates the call “for an immediate cessation of hostilities” and expresses “utmost concern at the continuing escalation of hostilities in Lebanon and in Israel".

The draft emphasises “the need to create the conditions for a permanent cease-fire and a lasting solution to the current crisis between Israel and Lebanon” and spells out these conditions in greater detail than the original French draft circulated on Saturday.

The conditions include respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Israel and Lebanon and the UN-drawn boundary between the two countries, and establishment of a buffer zone where only Lebanese security forces and UN-mandated international forces would be allowed.

Other conditions include the release of the two abducted Israeli soldiers that sparked the current fighting, ”settlement of the issue of the Lebanese prisoners detained in Israel,” and marking the international borders of Lebanon, including the disputed Chebaa farms area.

The conditions also include full implementation of Israeli-Lebanese agreements and UN resolutions that demand the disarmament of all militias in Lebanon and the extension of the Lebanese government’s authority and deployment of its army throughout southern Lebanon, which is now controlled by Hezbollah.

“I think we are making progress, I would say real progress,” France’s UN Ambassador Jean-Marc de La Sabliere told reporters, though he cautioned that he was not as optimistic about the quick adoption of a resolution today as he was yesterday.