Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallad told his US counterpart Lloyd Austin today that the chance to find a diplomatic solution to the standoff with Iran-backed Hezbollah in southern Lebanon is slipping away.

Gallant’s comments came as White House special envoy Amos Hochstein is in Israel for talks on the crisis on the northern border where Israeli troops have been exchanging rocket fire with Hezbollah forces for months.

“The possibility of an agreed framework in the northern region is fading,” Gallant told Austin in a phone call, according to a statement from his office.

As long as Hezbollah continues to link with the Islamist movement, Hamas, in Gaza, where Israeli forces have been waging war for nearly a year, “the course is clear,” he said.

OR Hockstein’s visitwho is due to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, comes amid efforts to find a diplomatic way out of the crisis, which has forced tens of thousands of people from both sides of the border to flee their homes.

Today the Israeli media reported that the head of the army’s northern command has suggested a rapid border operation for the creating a neutral zone in southern Lebanon.

While the war in Gaza has been Israel’s main focus since the attack by Hamas gunmen on October 7 last year, the precarious situation in the north has sparked fears of a regional conflict, which could involve the US and Iran.

A Hezbollah rocket barrage the day after October 7 started this late phase of the conflict, and since then there have been daily exchanges of rockets and missiles with Israeli warplanes striking Lebanese soil.

Hezbollah has said it is not seeking a wider war at present, but that if Israel starts one, it will respond.

Israeli officials have said for months that Israel cannot accept the situation on its northern border indefinitely, but as long as its troops remain tied up in Gaza, there are questions about the military’s readiness to invade southern Lebanon.

However, some hardliners in the Israeli government are pushing for action, and today National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, a longtime opponent of Gallad, called for the latter’s removal.

“We need a decision on the north and Gallant is not the right person to promote it,” he wrote in X.

Hundreds of Hezbollah fighters and dozens of Israeli soldiers and civilians have been killed in the firefight, which has turned communities on both sides of the border into ghost towns.

The two sides came close to all-out war last month when Israeli forces killed a senior Hezbollah commander in Beirut in retaliation for a rocket strike that killed 12 children in the Israeli-held Golan Heights.