U.S. President Joe Biden made the announcement last week that Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah have agreed to a ceasefire, which took effect on Wednesday, November 27th. The deal was mediated by France and the United States. Biden noted that he had a very productive conversation with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Lebanon’s Prime Minister Najib Mikati shortly after Israel’s security cabinet approved the ceasefire in a 10-1 vote.

Mikati recently issued a statement welcoming the deal. His Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib revealed that the Lebanese army would be ready to have at least 5,000 troops deployed in southern Lebanon as Israeli troops withdraw from the country. Israel will gradually pull out its forces over 2 months as Lebanon’s army takes control of its territory near the border with Israel to make sure that Hezbollah doesn’t rebuild its infrastructure there. In his report from the White House, Biden remarked that the ceasefire “is designed to be a permanent cessation of hostilities” between Lebanon’s Hezbollah and the Israeli military. The ceasefire came after a change of attitudes on both sides in late October, a Lebanese official said in an interview with Reuters. A slender majority of the Israeli public seems to support the Lebanon armistice as well. A poll conducted by Israel’s popular television Channel 12 found that 37% of Israelis were in favor of the ceasefire and 32% were against it. 

The agreement paved the way for the resolution of a border dispute between Israel and Lebanon that has claimed hundreds of lives since it was sparked by the war in Gaza last year. According to Netanyahu, who is facing some opposition to the deal within his coalition government, this ceasefire will enable Israel to concentrate on the Iranian threat and isolate Hamas, the Palestinian militant organization accused of starting the regional conflict when it attacked Israel from Gaza last year. Iran is the primary backer for a range of groups across the Middle East, which include both Hamas and Hezbollah. Since Israel is currently at war with these groups, Iran becomes involved in the hostilities by association, otherwise known as a proxy conflict. In late September, Israel assassinated former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Brig-Gen Abbas Nilforoushan, a high-ranking Iranian official, in Beirut.

Despite the diplomatic breakthrough, hostilities between the two sides continued right up until the ceasefire was enforced. Just hours before the truce was scheduled to take effect, Israel issued more evacuation advisories. Israel drastically increased its campaign of bombings on Beirut and other parts of Lebanon, causing hostilities to rage. According to Lebanese health officials, at least 18 people were killed. A money exchange office was among the “components of Hezbollah’s financial management” that the Israeli military claimed to have hit. Hezbollah also kept up rocket fire into Israel. During Tuesday night’s massive missile bombardment that caused warning sirens in about 115 settlements, Israel’s air force reportedly intercepted three rockets from Lebanese territory. Reuters goes into further detail with first-hand accounts from the civilians who are bearing the brunt of the regional conflict. They feature an interview with Alia Ibrahim, a woman from southern Lebanon who had fled her village with her children about three months ago to take shelter in Beirut. “In these few seconds before they announced the ceasefire, they destroyed half our village,” she said. “God willing, we can go back to our homes and our land.” She, like many others in Lebanon, hopes that the Israeli military will be faithful to the deal so they may return to their villages. Many of them are still exercising extreme caution, as Israeli officials have expressed contradictory views on a ceasefire in the past.

In an announcement from senior Hezbollah official Hassan Fadlallah on November 26th, Hezbollah vows to remain active after its war with Israel ends. They claim that they will now shift their focus to assisting the displaced Lebanese return to their communities and rebuilding areas damaged by Israeli bombings. “From now, we confirm that the Resistance (Hezbollah) will remain, will continue, and will carry on,” Fadlallah, who is also a member of Lebanon’s parliament, told Reuters in an interview. “And the proof of that is that when Israel’s aggression against Lebanon ends, then the Resistance that was fighting in the battlefield will itself be working to help its people to return home and to rebuild,” he said.

However, Israel has continued carrying out daily strikes in Lebanon since Thursday, one day after the armistice was supposed to be honored. The UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon, UNIFIL, reported that Israel has breached its ceasefire agreement with Lebanon almost 100 times. Lebanese health officials report one person killed in a strike in southern Lebanon. On Monday, Hezbollah responded by firing two projectiles, both aimed at a large open area. No one was injured. According to a CNN affiliate, both the United States and French governments have warned Israel that their military has now violated the terms of the ceasefire. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar responded to these claims on the social media platform X by emphasizing that the deal stipulates Hezbollah’s withdrawal from the Israel-Lebanon border area. Therefore, their continued strikes into Lebanon are made to enforce the ceasefire, rather than to violate it. Sa’ar made the promise that Israel is “committed to the successful implementation of the ceasefire understandings,” so long as Hezbollah operatives move north. 

It is clear that as long as Hezbollah remains in southern Lebanon, whether its purpose is to continue fighting Israel or to simply rebuild homes, Israel will continue its cross-border strikes. Both the Lebanese government and Hezbollah have insisted that a return of displaced civilians to southern Lebanon is a key tenet of the truce that they refuse to compromise on. The Israeli military withdrawal from the Lebanese border is still expected to happen in phases. Consequently, A senior U.S. official said that the U.S. and France would join a mechanism with the UNIFIL peacekeeping force that would work with Lebanon’s army to deter both sides from any more potential violations of the ceasefire.