Israel's announcement that it would support the deployment of a temporary international force in south Lebanon may have signalled that diplomatic efforts to end the crisis had gone up a gear, but it has also raised speculation over whether Israel was beginning to scale back the goals it set when it launched its offensive against Hizbullah 12 days ago.
"Israel's goal is to see the Lebanese army deployed along the border with Israel, but we understand that we are talking about a weak army and that in the midterm period, Israel will have to accept a multinational force," Israeli defence minister Amir Peretz was reported as telling German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier yesterday.
Mr Peretz suggested that the force be headed by Nato, that it have "enforcing authority . . .until the Lebanese army can deploy and operate effectively" and that it be equipped with sufficient fire-power to keep Hizbullah away from the border with Israel.
Only last week, the prime minister, Ehud Olmert, had declared it was "too early" to talk about an international force in south Lebanon. However, Israel's sudden readiness to accept an international force could represent a step back from its initial goal of weakening Hizbullah sufficiently so that the new Lebanese government could exert control in the Hizbullah-controlled south of the country.
Despite a massive aerial bombardment of Hizbullah positions, the Shia organisation is still daily firing dozens of rockets into Israel. Two people were killed yesterday when close to 100 rockets slammed into towns across northern Israel.
Eitan Cabel, a Labour Party minister, conceded yesterday he had hoped that almost two weeks into Israel's military campaign, the army would have chalked up greater achievements, thus allowing the government to negotiate more effectively.
He still believed the Shia organisation would be forced away from the border and that "even if we don't disarm Hizbullah, we can make them think a thousand times before they try anything again".
Justice minister Haim Ramon, of the ruling Kadima party, insisted however that Israel still had as its goal implementation of UN resolution 1559, which calls for the disarming of Hizbullah and the deployment of the Lebanese army in the south. An international force, he said, "could help" in implementing 1559.
A ceasefire deal that did not achieve these aims would be tantamount to "handing a victory" to Hizbullah, but Israel was "still far" from agreeing to a ceasefire because the goals of forcing Hizbullah beyond the Litani river - 20 to 30km inside Lebanon - and of ensuring "that a terror organisation will not have ground-to-ground missiles", had not yet been achieved.
The need to emerge from the current conflict with a tangible achievement could increase pressure on the government to significantly expand Israel's still limited ground operation in south Lebanon, which has been confined so far to raids by special forces on Hizbullah positions close to the border with Israel.
A growing number of former army officers are insisting that an aerial offensive alone cannot sufficiently weaken Hizbullah.
Chief army spokeswoman Brig Gen Miri Regev yesterday continued to insist that the military had "no plan of remaining on the ground [ in Lebanon] for an extended period. For now, the decision is not to launch a massive ground operation. We have no intention of getting bogged down in the mud of Lebanon. The aim is to keep Hizbullah away from the border and to change the rules of the game."
Israel has traditionally been sceptical of the idea of an international force, pointing to the inability of the Unifil force now operating in south Lebanon to prevent Hizbullah attacks.
There was also no immediate comment from Hizbullah, which would have to agree to the stationing of foreign troops in the region and which has also traditionally opposed the idea.
It is also unclear whether an effective ceasefire deal can be cut without the involvement of Syria, which still exerts significant influence over Lebanon.
US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice is scheduled to arrive in Israel today to begin discussions on forging a deal to end the hostilities. Israeli officials are working on the assumption it will be at least a week until an agreement is reached and Israel has to end its offensive against Hizbullah.
Mr Olmert, meanwhile, has accused the international media of bias in its coverage of the conflict, saying that it portrayed a "twisted image" in which "the victim is presented as an aggressor".
"The massive, brutal and murderous viciousness of Hizbullah is unfortunately not represented in its full intensity on television screens outside of Israel," he told reporters yesterday.