Israel and Lebanon agree to cease-fire

Nov. 26, 2024 Updated 2:40 PM PT

AMMAN, Jordan — Israel and Lebanon agreed Tuesday to a cease-fire aimed at ending a nearly 14-month conflict between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah that has left more than 3,000 people dead and threatened to ignite a wider regional war.

President Biden announced the agreement from the White House on Tuesday afternoon.

“Effective 4 a.m. tomorrow local time, the fighting across the Lebanese-Israeli border will end. Will end,” Biden said. “This is designed to be a permanent cessation of hostilities. I applaud the courageous decision made by the leaders of Lebanon and Israel to end the violence.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said earlier Tuesday that his security Cabinet voted to approve the agreement, despite fierce opposition from some of the more radical members of his coalition.

Though the deal does not involve the separate conflict between Israel and Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip, Biden administration officials said they hoped it would lead to an agreement to end fighting there too, and see the release of hostages held by Hamas.

Even as the deal was finalized, Israeli warplanes launched a series of airstrikes across Lebanon, striking areas in the country’s south and east, along with the suburbs of the capital — areas where Hezbollah militants hold sway.

Several airstrikes also hit the heart of Beirut, killing at least 10 people, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry.

“The length of the cease-fire will depend on what happens in Lebanon,” Netanyahu said. He added that Israel would maintain the option to act against violations.

“If Hezbollah breaks the agreement and seeks to arm itself, we will attack,” he said.

In pushing his ministers to accept the agreement, Netanyahu argued it would allow Israel to focus its attention on the threat from Iran, give Israeli troops an opportunity to replenish their stocks and isolate Hamas.

The agreement will initiate a 60-day truce that would see both sides gradually withdraw: Israeli troops out of south Lebanon to Israeli territory, and Hezbollah to areas north of the Litani River, nearly 20 miles north of the Lebanese-Israeli border. During the truce, a monitoring mechanism would be established that would ensure Hezbollah is not able to reconstitute itself or wage attacks on Israel from southern Lebanon.

A U.S.-led committee would oversee implementation of the withdrawal, but Biden said U.S. troops would not deploy in southern Lebanon to do so.

Lebanese officials say about 5,000 soldiers from Lebanon’s army — which has remained neutral during the conflict — would then enter south Lebanon, along with United Nations peacekeeping forces.

Lebanon’s caretaker government is set to meet Wednesday to give final approval to the proposal. Biden said he spoke to the leaders of Israel and Lebanon and both communicated their countries’ acceptance.

Despite the optimism, many elements of the cease-fire proposal — which came about after vigorous negotiations brokered by the U.S. and France — remain unclear.

One of the larger sticking points is whether Israel would be able to continue striking Hezbollah throughout Lebanon if the group attempts to reestablish a presence south of the Litani River, or if it continues to wage attacks on Israel or smuggle weapons.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz told the U.N.’s Lebanon envoy Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert on Tuesday that Israel would act “forcefully” against any breach of the cease-fire agreement.

“If you do not act, we will do it, forcefully,” Katz said in a statement. “Any house rebuilt in south Lebanon and used as a terrorist base will be destroyed, any rearming or terrorist organization will be attacked, any attempt at transferring arms will be foiled, and any threat against our forces or our citizens will be immediately eliminated.”

Lebanese leaders have dismissed such terms as an unacceptable breach of Lebanon’s sovereignty.

In the end, U.S. officials acknowledged that Israel retained the de facto ability to attack, but that the streamlined mechanism would be in place to evaluate any perceived violation with hopes of averting escalation.

The cease-fire would officially be an agreement between Israel and Lebanon. It includes a Lebanese lawmaker who has been negotiating on Hezbollah’s behalf. But Hezbollah, a paramilitary faction and political party that is backed by Iran, is not officially a party to the agreement. Still, a senior U.S official, briefing reporters on condition of anonymity, said the terms that Lebanon agrees to will apply to Hezbollah.

Another question is the fate of Hezbollah’s weapons. Before the war, the group was considered one of the world’s premier paramilitary factions, with an arsenal more powerful than that of the Lebanese army. The cease-fire agreement — based on a U.N. resolution that established a 2006 truce between Hezbollah and Israel that was never fully implemented — has provisions that would force the group to surrender its arms.

A cease-fire would end a conflict that began a day after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel, when Hezbollah initiated a rocket campaign in northern Israel in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.

In the months of tit-for-tat strikes that followed, about 60,000 people from northern Israel and about 100,000 Lebanese from southern Lebanon were displaced.

In September, Israel escalated its attacks, conducting thousands of airstrikes on Hezbollah-dominated parts of the country and launching an invasion that saw Israeli troops enter southern Lebanon for the first time since 2006. It also assassinated Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah.

Since Oct. 8, 2023, more than 3,823 people have been killed in Lebanon and 15,859 injured, according to Lebanese government data, the majority of them in the last two months. More than 25% of those killed were women and children, according to the government data, which do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.

Meanwhile, about 1.2 million people — almost a quarter of Lebanon’s population — have been displaced, with wide swaths of the country destroyed.

The Israeli government said Tuesday that 78 Israelis have been killed in attacks by Hezbollah and its allies, including 47 civilians.

Even as senior Israeli ministers were meeting at military headquarters in Tel Aviv, Israeli warplanes launched some 180 airstrikes across Lebanon, according to a statement from the military. It issued evacuation warnings for some cities. The military said it was targeting Hezbollah’s infrastructure, including the group’s financial arm.

Among the targets were four neighborhoods of central Beirut that had been spared from the fighting.

One attack hit Hamra, a popular shopping district in the capital that in recent months has become a sanctuary for hundreds of thousands displaced from the Dahiyeh, the constellation of suburbs south of Beirut where many of Hezbollah’s offices are headquartered.

The Dahiyeh too was pounded by an intense barrage of more than 20 airstrikes, leaving the area obscured by a curtain of smoke and rocking buildings in adjacent neighborhoods.

“The hysterical Israeli aggression this evening on Beirut and various Lebanese regions, which specifically targets civilians, confirms once again that the Israeli enemy does not respect any law or consideration,” said Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati in a statement Tuesday. He called on the international community “to act quickly to stop this aggression and implement an immediate ceasefire.”

Meanwhile, Hezbollah continued its barrage against northern Israel, lobbing dozens of projectiles across the border.

Bulos reported from Amman and Wilkinson from Washington.