Hezbollah has rebuffed Washington's initial ideas for cooling tit-for-tat fighting with Israel but remains open to US diplomacy to avoid a ruinous war, Lebanese officials have told Reuters.
One suggestion, passed on by Lebanese mediators, floated last week was that border hostilities be scaled back in tandem with Israeli moves towards lower intensity operations in Gaza, the three Lebanese sources and a US official said.
A proposal was also communicated to Hezbollah that its fighters move 7 km (4 miles) from the border, two of the three Lebanese officials said. That would leave fighters much closer than Israel's public demand of a 30 km (19 mile) withdrawal to the Litani River stipulated in a 2006 UN resolution.
Hezbollah has dismissed both ideas as unrealistic, the Lebanese officials and the diplomat said.
However, the group was "ready to listen," a senior Lebanese official familiar with the group's thinking said.
Reuters
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