More than a year after the start of the war with the Lebanese Hezbollah militia, the Israeli security cabinet led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has approved a US-brokered ceasefire, according to consistent reports in the Israeli media. It should come into force on Wednesday morning, reported the news portal ynet and the broadcaster Channel 12. It had previously been reported that the weapons should initially be silent for 60 days. “The duration of the ceasefire depends on what happens in Lebanon,” Netanyahu warned on television.

After the fighting has stopped, the militia loyal to Iran will initially withdraw behind the Litani River, about 30 kilometers north of the de facto Israeli-Lebanese border, according to initially unconfirmed reports. Israel’s ground troops should then withdraw from Lebanon within 60 days. “If Hezbollah violates the agreement and tries to arm itself, we will attack,” emphasized Netanyahu.

Lebanese army is supposed to keep Hezbollah away from the border

In order to prevent Hezbollah fighters from returning, soldiers from the Lebanese army, who are not actually involved in the war, should be stationed in the border area parallel to the Israeli withdrawal, media reported unanimously in negotiating circles. The agreement would be monitored by a group of states led by the USA together with France, Lebanon, Israel and the UN peacekeeping force Unifil, which has been stationed in Lebanon for years. The monitoring commission should also ensure that the militia does not re-arm itself. In a later step, Israel and Lebanon should also negotiate disputed border issues.

UN resolution of 2006 as a blueprint

According to available reports, the agreement largely corresponds to UN Resolution 1701, which tried in vain to bring about a permanent end to the violence after the previous war in 2006. US mediator Amos Hochstein therefore referred to the terms of the new agreement as “1701 Plus”.

The Israeli government also wanted to protect itself in the event that Hezbollah breaks the agreement and the Lebanese army and the international group of states remain inactive – for example in the event of new militia attacks on Israel. In this case, Israel wanted the USA to guarantee it in writing the right to intervene militarily in Lebanon at any time. However, this letter is not part of the ceasefire agreement. “With the full consent of the USA, we retain full military freedom of action,” Netanyahu said on television.

According to unconfirmed Israeli media reports, Israel should be given the right to immediately respond militarily to immediate threats. For example, if missiles were to be fired. However, in the case of “evolving” threats, such as the digging of attack tunnels, Israel must first alert the international group of states.

An important point of the agreement also revolves around the arsenal of Hezbollah, which, according to experts, was one of the strongest paramilitary groups in the world before the start of the war. The government of Lebanon – currently only acting in office – should monitor all arms sales to the country and their production to ensure that they do not reach Hezbollah or other armed groups.

Doubts about supervision of Hezbollah weapons

Because Hezbollah is very powerful in Lebanon and the state has little control over it, it is doubtful whether Hezbollah can be prevented from arming itself again. UN Resolution 1701 of 2006 already provided for such supervision – but Hezbollah has still been able to significantly expand its arsenal since then. According to experts, the militia receives most of its weapons, including thousands of missiles and drones, from Iran, including overland via Syria.

There are also doubts whether the planned deployment of a total of 10,000 Lebanese army soldiers – 5,000 are already in the south – can help calm the conflict. The army is poorly financed and is considered very weak and would probably get caught between the fronts in the event of renewed fighting instead of preventing it. According to the UN peacekeeping force Unifil, 45 Lebanese soldiers have been killed since the war began.

Hezbollah no longer depends on Gaza for shelling

According to its own statements, the militia fired on Israel in support of the Islamist Hamas, which triggered the Gaza war with the terrorist attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. According to Israeli military figures, Hezbollah has fired more than 17,000 rockets at Israel since the start of the war. Originally, the militia only wanted to end this shelling once a ceasefire had been reached in the Gaza Strip. She now waived this condition.

On the Lebanese side, massive air and ground attacks by Israel reduced numerous villages and neighborhoods to rubble. Analysis by the British data project ACLED found that Israel attacked in Lebanon about five times as often as Hezbollah did in Israel. A total of around 12,000 targets were bombed in Lebanon, the Israeli army said on request. The heaviest air strikes on the greater Beirut area occurred just hours before the ceasefire was announced.

Israel’s army had massively expanded its attacks on Hezbollah since September and soon began a ground offensive. According to official figures, more than 3,700 people have been killed and around 15,500 injured in Lebanon in Israeli attacks since the start of the war. The information made no distinction between civilians and armed people. More than 800,000 people in Lebanon have been displaced by the war in the country, and hundreds of thousands more have fled to neighboring Syria.

In Israel during the same period, Hezbollah attacks left 76 dead, the majority of them civilians, more than 700 injured and extensive property damage. However, Israel’s missile defense intercepted most of the projectiles fired by the pro-Iranian militia. Around 60,000 residents of northern Israel were evacuated.

Residents of towns in northern Israel criticized the ceasefire. “I don’t understand how we went from total victory to total surrender,” said the mayor of the border town of Kiriat Shmona, Awichai Stern. Netanyahu met with representatives of municipalities in the north to convince them of the ceasefire. Opposition politicians also complained that the ceasefire came too early and that Hezbollah had not been sufficiently weakened.