Qassam Muaddi
Mondoweiss / November 27, 2024
A ceasefire deal between Israel and Hezbollah took hold on Wednesday. As both sides halted their military operations, thousands of displaced Lebanese began returning to their homes and villages that had been under a months-long Israeli bombardment.
Thousands of displaced Lebanese began to return to their towns and villages in the south of Lebanon just minutes after a ceasefire deal between Lebanon and Israel entered into effect early on Wednesday. Military operations ceased on both sides of the border, and Israeli forces began to withdraw from areas it had invaded in the south of Lebanon. Fireworks and car horns echoed on roads leading to southern Lebanon, as caravans of cars and people on foot headed towards the war-stricken areas. Many of those returning home, displaced for weeks and months due to Israeli bombardment, raised Lebanese national flags and the bright yellow flags of Hezbollah in defiance.
In the final hours of Tuesday evening before the announcement of the ceasefire, Israel intensified its airstrikes to unprecedented rate before and during its cabinet meeting, bombing at least 13 buildings on the Dahiyah district and other parts of Beirut, and bombing the city of Tyre and the Palestinian refugee camp of Rashidiyeh south of Tyre. Hezbollah, for its part, launched a large barrage of rockets and missiles on Haifa, greater Tel Aviv area, Kiryat Shmona, and al-Matalleh.
The ceasefire allowed media crews to record the extent of destruction in the southern Lebanese towns, showing entire buildings levelled to the ground, and entire areas covered with debris, empty of population. Media crews haven’t yet been allowed into the border areas on the Israeli side. However, the Yediot Ahronot Israeli daily newspaper reported that 9,000 houses have been “completely damaged,” and that 7,000 vehicles and 300 agricultural lots were destroyed, with the government paying more than 39 billion dollars in reparations.
Late on Tuesday, U.S. president Joe Biden announced that the ceasefire deal would enter into force at 4:00 am local time. Earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu announced that his cabinet ratified the deal in a televised statement, following an hours-long cabinet meeting.
In a televised statement, Netanyahu said that Israel concluded the ceasefire deal for three reasons: renewing the provisions of its army, focusing on the confrontation with Iran, and separating the fronts of Lebanon and Gaza, adding that “Hamas is now isolated.”
Although Hezbollah hasn’t issued an official statement, the deputy-chief of its political council, Mahmoud Qiamati, told Al-Jazeera that the movement “does not trust Israel and will remain vigilant to its attempts to sabotage it.” Qimati also added that the ceasefire deal “is exclusively about the war on Lebanon and the UN resolution 1701,” noting that Hezbollah’s commitment to Gaza has not stopped, and that “after the ceasefire we will give due positions to other matters.”
On Thursday morning, Lebanon’s Prime Minister Najib Miqati announced that “Lebanon will abide by the UN resolution 1701 and reinforce its national army’s presence in all Lebanese territory.” Miqati also said that “Lebanon has crossed one of the most painful phases to Lebanon in its modern history.”
What does the ceasefire deal say ?
The ceasefire deal was reached after months of indirect negotiations between Lebanon and Israel under the auspices of the US envoy Amos Hochstein. Hezbollah didn’t participate in the negotiation process, and delegated the speaker of the Lebanese parliament Nabih Berri to represent its position. Israel had pressed to amend the UN resolution 1701, which ended Israel’s war on Lebanon in 2006 to include a clause allowing Israel to have freedom of military action in Lebanon’s territory and airspace, which was rejected by the Lebanese state and by Hezbollah.
The final deal includes 13 clauses reaffirming the same points of the 1701 resolution, namely the cessation of hostilities and the deployment of the Lebanese army and UN peace keeping forces along the border. The deal also included Israel’s withdrawal from all Lebanese territory progressively in a period of 60 days, and the formation of a multi-lateral commission to oversee the implementation of the ceasefire. The commission would include the UN, the US, France, and Lebanon. According to the deal, the Lebanese government should prevent any “non-state military activity in its territory” and prevent any attacks on Israel, referring to Hezbollah.
While the ceasefire was celebrated in Lebanon, in Israel, it provoked angry reactions, especially as Netanyahu clarified that Israelis couldn’t yet return to their residencies in the north, and that the government will inform them when it will be safe for them to return. The mayors of the northern Israeli colonies protested the deal before it was announced. Both the mayors of Matalleh and Margaliot, voiced their fears that Hezbollah continues to be present at the border, with the mayor of Margaliot warning from “a new October 7” in the north.
Israel’s National Security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said that Israel “missed a historic opportunity to eradicate Hezbollah,” and called the deal “a submission.” Israeli opposition leader and former war minister Avigdor Liberman also called the deal “a capitulation,” saying that “it would last for five of six years and then the fourth Lebanon war will start [the 1982, 2006, and 2024 wars being the first three], except that by then they [Hezbollah] will have 40,000 drones stationed in Baalbek.” The Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s first reaction was to slam the deal, saying that “it’s not worth the ink it was written with,” only to change his position later and vote for the deal, justifying his change of mind on ‘X’ where he wrote that “this deal, if we commit to it, might insure Israel’s security forever, and I voted for it because I think we will commit to it.”
On Thursday, Hezbollah’s political council deputy-chief Mahmoud Qimati told the press that the movement is preparing for the funeral of its secretary general Hasan Nasrallah and its executive council chief Hashem Safiyudin, expecting the funeral to be “a popular referendum on the choice of resistance.”
Hezbollah began its operations against Israel on October 8 of last year in support of Gaza, with limited cross-border attacks. Hostilities escalated as Israel expanded its bombing of Lebanese towns and villages. In early October, Israel carried out a widespread remote detonation of pagers in Lebanon, killing dozens of Lebanese, mostly civilians, and followed the attack with targeted assassinations of Hezbollah top military leaders, culminating with the assassination of Nasrallah and Safiyudin, before launching a full-fledged war on the country. Israel’s war on Lebanon killed 3,823 people and wounded 15,859 more, according to the Lebanese health ministry.
Qassam Muaddi is the Palestine Staff Writer for Mondoweiss
