At a moment Israel's military remains bogged down in its biggest counter-terror operation ever in Gaza, certainly Israeli leaders are hoping to avoid a major northern front battle.

Likely this desire to contain the conflict is what is behind fresh remarks by Israel's defense minister Yoav Gallant, who on Monday told reporters that his country is open to inking a possible agreement with Iran-backed Hezbollah for 'security guarantees' to stabilize the Lebanese border.

"If Hezbollah will allow an agreement process, and I won't go now into its details, but clearly it cannot be that it does not include a situation in which there is a safe distance from our fence to forces that could shoot into Israeli territory or forces that could take action inside Israel. If this is possible, with the appropriate guarantee, we can talk about it," Gallant told the press briefing. He wants the threat to Israel's population to be removed.

Soon after Oct.7, Israel began evacuating dozens of towns and settlements near the border, to within 2km of it, after Hezbollah rockets began raining down. Gallant floated a deal that would allow Israeli residents to return.

Commenting on the defense minister's words, Al Jazeera cited Israeli sources to say that the plan envisions American and French peacekeeping troops on either side of the border: 

He did not give any more details, but Israeli sources have been quoted as saying that this would involve the deployment of French troops on the Lebanese side of the border and American soldiers on the Israeli side of the border.

So France and America would give some sort of security guarantees.