Israel announced a ceasefire plan with Lebanon after more than a year of war that has brought trauma and destruction to both sides of the border and forced hundreds of thousands of people from their homes.

The ceasefire was revealed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Tuesday night and marked a rare diplomatic win for U.S. President Joe Biden, whose administration had been trying for months to put an end to the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and the Israel-Hezbollah war in Lebanon.

Mr. Biden said hours later that both Lebanon and Israel had accepted the ceasefire, which took effect 4 a.m. local time. He thanked his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, for his help in reaching the deal to suspend the hostilities. “We, along with France and others, will provide the necessary assistance to make sure this deal is implemented fully and effectively,” Mr. Biden said, adding that no U.S. troops would be on the ground to enforce the plan.

He said he hoped the ceasefire in Lebanon would be a prelude to a similar deal between Hamas and Israel in Gaza and reiterated his call for a Palestinian state. “Just as the Lebanese people deserve a future of security and prosperity, so do the people of Gaza,” he said. “People of Gaza have been through hell – their world is absolutely shattered.”

Mr. Netanyahu presented the plan to end the fighting to his cabinet, which accepted the deal in a late-night vote. “We’ve destroyed most of the rockets and missiles,” he said in a TV address, suggesting Israel had won the war. “We’ve killed thousands of terrorists and we destroyed the underground and terrorist infrastructure near our borders.”

Hezbollah signalled tentative support for the deal. Mahmoud Qamati, deputy chair of the militant group’s political council, said the deal hinged on clarity that Israel would not renew hostilities. “After reviewing the agreement signed by the enemy government, we will see if there is a match between what we stated and what was agreed upon by the Lebanese officials,” Mr. Qamati told Al Jazeera.

Many of the group’s leaders have been killed in recent weeks in Israeli air strikes, with some of the survivors fleeing to Iran.

On Tuesday night, Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati called on the international community to “act swiftly” and “implement an immediate ceasefire” to end the war.

The agreement‘s broad outline was known for several days. It will see a 60-day ceasefire in Lebanon, during which time Israeli forces are to withdraw from the country while Hezbollah guerrilla fighters move north of the Litani River, which lies about 30 kilometres north of the border with Israel.

The two sides are to be replaced in southern Lebanon by the Lebanese Army and peacekeepers from UNIFIL – the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon – helping fulfil UN Resolution 1701, which dates from the 2006 war in Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah. The resolution, which was never fully implemented, called for Hezbollah’s disarmament and the withdrawal of Israeli and Hezbollah forces from southern Lebanon.

The ceasefire, if it holds, would allow some 60,000 Israelis to return to their homes in northern Israel, which has been under attack from Hezbollah rockets since Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel from Gaza, killing some 1,200 people and igniting the war in the territory. Hezbollah had said it would stop the attacks if there were a ceasefire in Gaza.

At the same time, the ceasefire would allow more than a million Lebanese to return to their homes in southern Lebanon, which was invaded by Israel on Oct. 1. Since then, Israel has attacked Hezbollah targets throughout the country. The Lebanese health authorities say at least 3,768 people have been killed and 15,699 wounded, most of them since late September.

There is no guarantee that UNIFIL and the small, poorly equipped Lebanese Army will be able to keep the peace. Israel has demanded the right to resume fighting if Hezbollah violates the agreement or if the Lebanese Army and UNIFIL fail to keep Hezbollah at bay in southern Lebanon.

Before the ceasefire was announced, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz told UN Special Envoy to Lebanon Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert that Israel would show “zero tolerance” for any breach of the agreement and would respond to any violations “with great force.”

On Tuesday night, Mr. Netanyahu delivered the same message. “If Hezbollah tries to attack us, if it arms itself and rebuilds infrastructure near the border, we will attack,” he said. “If they launch missiles, if they dig big tunnels, we will attack.”

Speaking at the G7 foreign ministers’ meeting outside Rome Tuesday evening, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said a Lebanon-Israel ceasefire could build momentum for a Hamas-Israel ceasefire. “Hamas will know it can’t count on other fronts opening up in the war,” he said.

The ceasefire announcement came on the same day that Israeli warplanes undertook relentless attacks on Beirut, both in the centre of the city and its southern suburbs. Various reports said thousands of residents were warned by Israel to evacuate their homes before the bombings. But Al Jazeera said some of the attacks in the city centre came with no warning.

Lebanon’s Health Ministry said at least 10 people were killed in central Beirut, though other reports said three times as many died in the capital. The attacks reportedly were in part designed to destroy Hezbollah’s financial operations.

Lebanon’s National News Agency reported that at least six people were killed in an Israeli air raid on a house in the ancient city of Baalbek, in the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon, near the Syrian border.

Writing in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, author Zvi Bar’el said the United States and Iran will be crucial to the ceasefire’s success.

“If the United States is the guarantor that Israel will uphold its part of the agreement, Iran, even without the official title or participation in the monitoring committee over the agreement, will be the guarantor that Hezbollah carries out its part of the bargain,” he said. “And, in doing so, Iran will also ensure Hezbollah’s status in Lebanon’s political fabric and its scope of influence on it.”

Paul Salem, vice-president for international engagement at the Middle East Institute, a think tank in Washington, said in a note that Lebanon seemed near breaking point after Israel’s land and air campaign against Hezbollah. “A ceasefire is desperately needed in Lebanon, first to enable 1.2 million displaced people to return to their homes, but also to organize the large-scale humanitarian and reconstruction aid that will be necessary to render their towns and villages habitable again.”

It is not known who would pay for the reconstruction, though the Lebanese people assume Iran would make large contributions to the effort. Whether the payments would go to the Lebanese government or to Hezbollah itself was also not known.

Mr. Salem said a ceasefire should allow Lebanon, which has been without a president or a functioning government for two years, to hold presidential elections and form a government.

Even before the ceasefire, there were rumblings of renewed efforts to elect a president, who would then appoint a neutral government made up of technocrats, the goal being to stop the institutional rot that prevented Lebanon from operating as a proper state even before the Israel-Hezbollah war.

Eric Reguly
European Bureau Chief
The Globe and Mail, November 26, 2024