U.S. mediator Amos Hochstein is preparing to return to Beirut in the first half of January to carry out a mediation between Lebanon and Israel aimed at delineating the land border between the two sides, media reports said.

”This is what U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Dorothy Shea has confirmed,” Asharq al-Awsat newspaper reported, noting that Shea “leaves Beirut today after the end of her mission to assume her new post at the U.N.”

Quoting senior Lebanese political sources, the daily said Shea had informed the Lebanese leaders she met with during her farewell tour of the date of Hochstein’s return to Beirut.

“Shea stressed the need to pacify the situation in order to prevent the spread of the war from Gaza to south Lebanon, without hiding her concerns over the escalation of the confrontations between Hezbollah and Israel in south Lebanon,” the sources added.

“In her farewell meetings, Shea emphasized the need to prepare the appropriate political circumstances for the implementation of U.N. resolution 1701, saying that she does not see a problem, at least from her viewpoint, in delineation the land border between Lebanon and Israel, starting with the 13 points that the Lebanese government had voiced reservations over,” the sources went on to say.

The sources also quoted Shea as saying that if Hochstein managed to secure a ceasefire, an appropriate security and political atmosphere would be created to find a solution to the Shebaa Farms issue.

“Washington has never said that the Shebaa Farms are territories under Israel’s sovereignty and it deals with them as being Lebanese territory, on the condition that Syria recognize and admit that,” Shea was quoted as saying, reportedly adding that “an agreement can be reached that would allow Lebanon to regain its sovereignty over them, perhaps through expanding the U.N. forces’ mission to include them, contrary to the Lebanese part of the Ghajar village.”