The US envoy to Lebanon, Amos Hochstein, is traveling, among other places, to Israel to try to persuade the Israeli government to agree to a negotiating solution. Hochstein is also in contact with the Lebanese government and the caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati.
In a TV interview with the Lebanese channel al-Jadeed, Mikati says that he has been in contact with Amos Hochstein, and that there are indications that a ceasefire could be reached before the US presidential election on November 5.
We are doing our best to reach a ceasefire within the next few hours or days. During today's conversation with Hochstein, a proposal was made that we could reach a truce in the next few days, before November 5, Mikati said in the interview on Wednesday.
The White House's chief for the Middle East division, Brett McGurk, is also expected to visit the region in a last-ditch effort by the Biden administration to make some kind of progress. However, frustration is growing within the government over Israel's actions. The US State Department's spokesperson Matthew Miller lamented that Israel has not responded to questions about the attack on Tuesday in Gaza, which claimed many civilian lives.
Miller said at a press conference that the attack was "appalling". When asked if the US had received new information about the incident from Israel during the day, he replied:
We repeated our call to them today. We still haven't received any information.
