Hopeful refugees are heading home, the guns will fall silent until Trump is inaugurated

After more than 13 months, the weapons may fall silent on the Lebanese front. A ceasefire between Israel and the Iranian-backed Lebanese militia, Hezbollah, came into effect on Wednesday at 4 a.m. local time.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke about a 60-day ceasefire, which the Lebanese army and UN UNIFIL, the world organization’s peacekeepers in Lebanon, will have to observe, and Israel reserves the right to take military action if it detects any sign of a breach of the ceasefire.

The emerging agreement can be considered a positive development on the Lebanese front, but the information that has been made public so far also raises many questions regarding the details. We asked the scientific associate of the John Lukács Institute of NKE about this.

According to János Kemény, the agreement was reached through American and French mediation assigns a large role to the Lebanese state, which has, however, become increasingly dysfunctional in recent yearsand the Israeli military action further weakened the already weakened structures of the Lebanese state, creating hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons in the country.

In addition, data reported by Al Jazeera according to until November 26, 3,823 people lost their lives and 15,859 were wounded.

– stressed János Kemény, recalling at the same time that Israel included the destruction of the group’s military infrastructure and the return of the displaced Israeli population among the goals of the war against Hezbollah.

To this end, the Israeli army carried out a limited ground operation to destroy Hezbollah facilities along the Lebanese border, including weapons depots, tunnels, and rocket launchers, and to destroy the group’s fighting personnel, thus complicating its military activities, and a 7 October 2023 preventing a Hezbollah action similar to the attack.

The expert sees that Hezbollah undoubtedly suffered significant losses during the fighting, and was forced to account for particularly sensitive losses at the leadership level.

At the same time, he proved to be able to demonstrate new abilities even in the intensive phase of the war. The drone attack on Prime Minister Netanyahu’s residence is a good example of this.

Among the Israeli objectives was forcing Hezbollah to retreat to the northern side of the Litani River. However, the depth of Israeli ground operations fell far short of this, thus

“enforcement of this would presumably be the task of the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers in Lebanon, which, however, in the current configuration, is most likely beyond the capabilities of these forces. In most conflicts, negotiating a cease-fire is a minor task, but enforcing it is a more serious problem.”

said János Kemény. The expert referred to Resolution No. 1701 of the UN Security Council, which played a role in ending the 2006 Lebanon war, which wanted to implement a similar solution, but it did not work even then.

“For the time being, there has been no talk of involving new actors. Hezbollah has certainly been weakened by the Israeli military action of the past few months, but the available information does not make it likely that the organization has been militarily broken, although it is impossible to assess the exact state of the group’s military strength from open sources. A spectacular example of the military wing’s activity is that it fired 250 rockets into Israel a few days agowhich shows that it is still capable of carrying out a significant, coordinated strike-measurement task despite Israeli military activity.”

– emphasized the scientific associate of the John Lukács Institute of NKE.

In his speech, Prime Minister Netanyahu named weakening Hezbollah and focusing on Iran as an important goal.

– said János Kemény, who says that we should not forget that the continuous war is also a burden for the Israeli side.

The country has been carrying out large-scale mobilization for more than a year, launching costly military operations, and the country’s economic situation is also suffering from this. The return of Israelis who fled and were displaced from the border zones in Gaza and Lebanon is also an open question.

Although the military action against Hezbollah has been politically more positive for the government so far, the Israeli leadership must be aware that a long-term engagement in Lebanon, as has been the case in Israel’s history for the establishment and maintenance of a buffer zone from 1982-2000, is costly and can lead to losses and negative political results in the long term.

“The war also revealed that Israel’s defense capabilities in some areas are not as comprehensive as was assumed before the war. This is especially true for the threat posed by drones, since not only Hezbollah, but also the Houthi movement in Yemen, was able to successfully use such devices against Israeli territory,” the expert told our newspaper.

János Kemény drew attention to the fact that the Israeli results achieved so far are not irreversible:

“Unless the political framework works properly and Hezbollah is able to successfully begin rearming, the ceasefire will be only a temporary pause in the longer conflict. And even if the ceasefire will work, it must not be forgotten that it does not mean peace. The framework of a lasting peace agreement does not seem to be outlined yet.”

According to the expert, the events in Lebanon have relatively little effect on the Gaza front, so the Lebanese ceasefire will not affect the military and political situation there. It does not respond to the challenge coming from Yemen, Iraq and Iran. That’s it can be evaluated as a temporary result in the current very complex confrontation between Israel and Iran and related Iranian proxy organizations.

What we know about the Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire agreement

US President Joe Biden told reporters the BBC reporting that the agreement was “designed to be a permanent ceasefire”:

• Under the ceasefire, Hezbollah will remove its fighters and weapons from the area between the Blue Line, the unofficial border between Lebanon and Israel, and the Litani River.
• Within the same 60 days, Israel will gradually withdraw its remaining forces, allowing civilians on both sides of the border to return to their homes.
• A US official said the Lebanese army is expected to deploy 5,000 troops to the south under the deal.
• The Lebanese army said it does not have the necessary resources to fulfill its obligations under the agreement: money, manpower and equipment.
• The deal largely follows UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah.
• This time, the US and France will join the existing tripartite mechanism, which includes UN peacekeepers in Lebanon (UNIFIL), Lebanon and Israel, which will be tasked with monitoring violations, the senior US official said.
• Referring to Israeli concerns, Biden stated: “The terrorist infrastructure of Hezbollah in southern Lebanon will not be allowed to be rebuilt.”
• Israel claims to respond to violations. Netanyahu said Israel would maintain “full freedom of military action” in Lebanon “with the full understanding of the United States.”
• The agreement preserves Lebanon’s sovereignty.

“If Hezbollah violates the agreement and tries to arm itself, we will attack. If you try to rebuild terrorist infrastructure near the border, we will attack. If you launch a rocket, if you dig a tunnel, if you bring in a truck carrying missiles, then we will attack” – he stated the Prime Minister of Israel.