Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced his support for a ceasefire deal to halt Israel’s fighting in Lebanon in a televised address Tuesday evening, projecting a message of victory to his Israeli audience. He spoke of a Hezbollah diminished by the Israeli campaign.
“This is not the same Hezbollah – we pushed them back decades,” Netanyahu said during his speech. “Lebanon is not the same.”
U.S. President Joe Biden spoke in support of the ceasefire later the same day, adding that his administration would use the momentum from Tuesday’s deal between Israel and Hezbollah to push toward a ceasefire deal in Gaza. Biden also blamed Hamas for the failure to secure peace in Gaza to date, alleging that the group has failed to negotiate in good faith, despite reporting to the contrary.
But Netanyahu’s own address seemed to undercut Biden’s point. In pitching the ceasefire to the Israeli audience, Netanyahu, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for potential war crimes, emphasized that closing the northern front of its war would allow Israel’s military to regroup and give the nation an opportunity to focus on other enemies: Iran and Hamas. He also emphasized that Israel would “retain complete military freedom of action,” adding that “should Hezbollah violate the agreement or attempt to rearm, we will strike decisively.”
The evidence that Netanyahu’s government is interested in any sort of lasting peace in both Lebanon and Gaza is thin on the ground.
Israel intensified its bombing campaign against Lebanon in recent days, up through and beyond the announcement of the pending ceasefire. A day before the truce was announced, Israeli strikes killed at least seven Palestinians in Gaza City. Reports have surfaced in recent days of the IDF using sniper drones to target and kill civilians. And as the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza has been slowed by Israel, experts warned of “a strong likelihood of famine” in areas of northern Gaza.
“The going conventional wisdom is that there’s no ceasefire deal because Netanyahu doesn’t want a hostage deal – he hasn’t wanted one because he wants to keep his coalition together, and the far right wants to resettle Gaza,” said Mairav Zonszein, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group focusing on Israel–Palestine. “You can’t pull out of Gaza if you’re going to build settlements there.”
She said Israelis are questioning why Netanyahu is striking a deal with Hezbollah instead of focusing on a ceasefire deal in Gaza, where more than 100 Israeli hostages remain. Residents of northern Israel have also criticized Tuesday’s deal, saying that Israel’s campaign in Lebanon has not improved their sense of safety near the border. While Hezbollah strikes have killed 45 Israeli citizens in northern Israel and in the occupied Golan Heights, the losses for Lebanon have been staggering.
Since Israel began its campaign on Lebanon in September, Israeli attacks have killed more than 3,800 Lebanese, injuring more than 15,000, many of them civilians. More than 1 million people have been displaced from Lebanon, including more than 500,000 Syrian refugees. The Israeli military has destroyed entire villages in the country’s south. The cost of rebuilding is estimated to be more than $8 billion.
Under Tuesday’s deal, the fighting will cease at 4 a.m. local time on Wednesday. Over a 60-day period, Israel must withdraw its soldiers from Lebanon while the Lebanese government takes control in southern Lebanon to restore a buffer security zone between Lebanon and Israel.
Such a zone already existed before the recent conflict as a result of a deal enacted in 2006. Under that agreement, the area was overseen by UN peacekeepers, which Israel has regularly bombed during the ongoing conflict. As part of Tuesday’s deal, Hezbollah, the Shia military group and political party, is not allowed to rebuild its military capacity or reassert itself in the country’s south.
Although Biden said the agreement was meant to be “a permanent cessation of hostilities,” he maintained that “Israel has a right to defend itself” if it suspects that Hezbollah is violating the deal.
“Despite the fact that I welcome and have begged for a ceasefire since day one, and that’s coming and I’m relieved, there is more than a bitter taste left in my mouth for the fact that the supposed ceasefire agreement is essentially what the status quo was before this entire operation,” said Drew Mikhael, an expert on displacement and conflict resolution with the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy.
“Some 3,000 deaths that we know about, the vaporized families that we’ll never know about that were killed because of killing Nasrallah, 1.5 million people who have been displaced – all for what?” Mikhael asked. Israel “decided to enact war crimes on its neighbor unilaterally for no apparent strategic gain,” he said.
Netanyahu affirmed his commitment to launching attacks into Lebanon if Hezbollah violated the deal.
Zonszein pointed out that the ceasefire does not indicate Israel’s desire for peace. She highlighted that ongoing U.S. support grants Israel the ability to operate freely in Lebanon through various means. She emphasized that maintaining the threat of violence against Lebanon and Iran is a crucial aspect of Israeli strategy.
“Israel aims to portray itself as a formidable force, especially after losing deterrence and power on October 7,” Zonszein explained. “It wants to cultivate a perception of being a fierce and ruthless entity that will target its enemies to project strength.”
Mikhael concurred with Zonszein, stating that Netanyahu must create pockets of insecurity around him, relying on violence and fear to appeal to the Israeli populace.
Shortly after Biden’s announcement of the agreement, Israeli warplanes once again bombed Beirut. The airstrikes persisted leading up to the imminent ceasefire.
