by SULEIMAN MOURAD
In the early morning of 27 November, a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hezbollah took effect. Its terms – drastically one-sided, reflecting the superior strength and leverage of the IDF – are as follows:
- The Israeli army agrees to stop its military campaigns in Lebanon and withdraw within sixty days.
- Hezbollah ceases its attacks on Israel and withdraws its fighters to north of the Litani River. Any Hezbollah military bases south of the Litani will be destroyed.
- With logistical and military help from the US and French armies, Lebanon will deploy 10,000 soldiers to secure the area south of the Litani.
- Displaced people can return to their towns.
- Lebanon and Israel commit to the implementation of UN Council Resolution 1701, initially adopted to end the 2006 war, while retaining their mutual right to self-defence.
- In line with the Resolution, the US and UN will mediate negotiations between Lebanon and Israel regarding unresolved issues along the ‘blue line’ (i.e., Israel’s violation of the de facto borders between the two countries).
- The US and France will lead an ‘international campaign’ to support reconstruction and development in Lebanon.
As with previous ceasefires, there are a number of secret clauses agreed by Israel and the US that are probably more meaningful than the official ones. In 2006, Washington was supposed to help enforce Resolution 1701, but instead it stood by as Israel repeatedly flouted its terms – refusing to allow the UN peacekeepers to fulfil their mandate and rejecting any serious presence of the Lebanese army south of the Litani. So Hezbollah eventually returned to the south and rebuilt its military infrastructure there. Will it be any different this time? Less than a week after the agreement, it is estimated that Israel has already violated it on 100 different occasions, carrying out home demolitions near the border, launching repeated air raids, shelling southern towns and villages, firing at returning civilians and flying low-altitude drones over Beirut. Hezbollah has responded with a largely symbolic volley of mortars – but, for now, the group seems willing to tolerate Israel’s continuing aggression rather than return to full-scale hostilities.
This lopsided deal is, perhaps most notably, a sign that Hezbollah has ended its military campaign in support of Palestine. In October 2023, the party declared a ‘unity of fronts’ in solidarity with Hamas and against Israeli atrocities in Gaza. Since then, it has been bruised by the unrelenting conflict: losing its secretary general Hassan Nasrallah and his successor Hashem Safieddine, along with pretty much all of its military top-brass and around 2,000 to 2,500 regular fighters. It is far from defeated; its political cadre remains almost entirely intact. But with the benefit of hindsight, it seems that its leadership overestimated its own strength and underestimated Israel’s dirty war tactics – on full display in its lethal pager and walkie-talkie attacks.
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