Reports: Blinken to help Nasrallah ease his stance

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will press Israel during his visit on Tuesday to officially declare the start of the so-called low-intensity third phase of its war on Gaza, media reports said.

“This declaration would grant Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah a chance to pacify the situation, which would pave the way for the plan of (U.S.) presidential envoy Amos Hochstein, who will visit Beirut this week, as announced by (caretaker PM Najib) Mikati yesterday,” the Nidaa al-Watan newspaper reported.

Mikati also said that Lebanon has received a proposal calling for Hezbollah’s withdrawal to the area north of the Litani River.

Hezbollah’s al-Ahed news portal meanwhile quoted an Israeli Channel 12 report as saying that “Blinken will bring this interesting offer in order to apparently grant Nasrallah a ladder to climb down the tree.”

Nasrallah and other Hezbollah officials have stressed that the cross-border attacks on Israel from south Lebanon will not stop before Israel ends its war on the Gaza Strip.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Monday that Israel does plan to shift to a "long" third phase of the war in the Gaza Strip.

Israeli forces will shift from the "intense maneuvering phase of the war” toward “different types of special operations," Gallant told The Wall Street Journal, without providing details or dates for this phase.

The next phase in the war "will last for a longer time," he said.

While Israel has not officially announced the shift to the third phase of the war, Israeli media reports suggested that it will be on the table of meetings between Blinken and Israeli officials in Tel Aviv on Tuesday.

Last week, the Israeli public broadcaster KAN revealed that the army shifted to the third stage of the war in some areas in the Gaza Strip with limited forces.

The third phase includes targeted airstrikes, withdrawal of forces and establishment of a buffer zone near the Gaza border, according to local media.