In an amazing coincidence, just as we hear about the proposal for French forces to guard Israel’s northern border, we also learn that France is pushing the UN to impose an immediate ceasefire: AP: U.N. council weighs Mideast cease-fire.

NEW YORK - A draft resolution circulating Saturday among U.N. Security Council members would call for an immediate halt to fighting between Israel and Hezbollah and seek a wide new buffer zone in south Lebanon monitored by international forces and the Lebanese army.

The proposal was sent quietly by France to the other 14 members of the council ahead of a possible meeting of foreign ministers in New York to discuss Lebanon sometime next week. A copy of the draft was obtained by The Associated Press.

The proposal stresses the need “to create the conditions for a permanent cease-fire and a lasting solution to the current crisis between Israel and Lebanon.”

Those conditions include a buffer zone stretching from the Blue Line — the U.N.-demarcated boundary that Israel withdrew behind in 2000 — to the Litani River, which was the northern border of Israel’s occupation of Lebanon in 1982.

The buffer zone would be “free of any armed personnel, assets and weapons other than those of the Lebanese armed and security forces and of U.N.-mandated international forces,” the draft says.