The Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire is a respite, not a wider solution

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The *******-Hezbollah ceasefire is a respite, not a wider solution

BBC

For most of the people of Lebanon, a ceasefire could not come quickly enough. A leading Lebanese analyst at a conference on the Middle East that I’m attending in Rome said she couldn’t sleep as the appointed hour for the ceasefire came closer.

“It was like the night before Christmas when you’re a ****. I couldn’t wait for it to happen.”

You can see why there’s relief. More than 3,500 citizens of Lebanon have been ******* in ******** strikes. Displaced people packed their cars before dawn to try to get back to whatever ******** of their homes.

Well over one million of them have been forced to flee by ******** military action. Thousands have been wounded and the homes of tens of thousands of others have been destroyed.

But in *******, some feel they have lost the chance to do more damage to Hezbollah.

Reuters

Damaged buildings in southern Lebanon – more than one million people fled the country

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met the heads of *******’s northern municipalities, which have been turned into ghost towns with around 60,000

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further south.

*******’s Ynet news website reported that it was an ****** meeting that turned into a shouting match, with some of the local officials frustrated that ******* was taking the pressure off their enemies in Lebanon and not offering an immediate plan to get civilians home.

In a newspaper column, the mayor of Kiryat Shmona, close to the border, said he doubted the ceasefire would be enforced, demanding that ******* creates a

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. In a poll commissioned by the ******** station Channel 12 News those questioned were roughly split between supporters and opponents of the ceasefire.

Half of the participants in the survey believe Hezbollah has not been defeated and 30% think the ceasefire will collapse.

ANADOLU

People returned to their homes after the ceasefire was announced

Back in late September, at the UN General Assembly in New York, a deal looked as if it was close. Diplomats from the US and *** were convinced that a ceasefire very similar to the one that is now coming into force was about to happen.

All sides in the war appeared to have signalled their willingness to accept a ceasefire based on the provisions of Security Council resolution 1701, which was passed to end the 2006 Lebanon war: Hezbollah would pull back from the border to be replaced by UN peacekeepers and the Lebanese Armed Forces. As they moved in, ******** forces would gradually move out.

But Prime Minister Netanyahu went to the podium at the UN to deliver a fiery speech that refused to accept any pause in *******’s offensive.

Back at his New York hotel Netanyahu’s official photographer captured the moment as he ordered the ************** of Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, along with most of his high command. Netanyahu’s office released the photos, in another calculated snub for ********* diplomacy.

The ************** was a significant escalation and a ***** to Hezbollah. In the weeks since, *******’s military has inflicted immense damage to Hezbollah’s military organisation. It could still ***** rockets over the border and its fighters continued to engage *******’s invasion force. But

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to *******.

Netanyahu: Time to ‘replenish stocks’

Military success is one of several factors that have come together to persuade Benjamin Netanyahu that this is a good time to stop.

*******’s agenda in Lebanon is more limited than in Gaza and the rest of the occupied ************ territories. It wants to push Hezbollah back from its northern border and to allow civilians to return to border towns.

If Hezbollah looks to be preparing an *******, ******* has a side letter from the Americans agreeing that it can take military action.

In a recorded statement announcing his decision, Netanyahu listed the reasons why it was time for a ceasefire. *******, he said, had made the ground in Beirut shake. Now there was a chance ‘to give our forces a breather and replenish stocks,’ he continued.

******* had also broken the connection between Gaza and Lebanon. After the late Hassan Nasrallah ordered the attacks on *******’s north, the day after ****** went to war on 7th October last year, he said they would continue until there was a ceasefire in Gaza.

Now, Netanyahu said, ****** in Gaza would be under even more pressure. Palestinians ***** another escalation in *******’s Gaza offensive.

There was one more reason; to concentrate on what Netanyahu called the Iranian threat. Damaging Hezbollah means damaging Iran. It was built up by the Iranians to create a threat right on *******’s border. Hezbollah became the strongest part of Iran’s axis of resistance, the name it gave to its network of forward defence made up of allies and proxies.

Why Iran wanted a ceasefire

Just like Hezbollah’s surviving leaders, their patrons in Iran also wanted a ceasefire. Hezbollah needs a pause to lick its wounds. Iran needs to stop the geostrategic bleeding. Its axis of resistance is no longer a deterrent. Iran’s missile ******* on ******* after Nasrallah’s ************** did not repair the damage.

Two men, both now assassinated, designed Hezbollah to deter ******* not just from attacking Lebanon – but also from attacking Iran. They were Qasem Soleimani, head of the Quds Force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, who was ******* by an ********* drone strike at Baghdad airport in January 2020. The order was issued by Donald Trump in his last few weeks in the White House at the end of his first term. The other was Hassan Nasrallah, ******* by a huge ******** air strike in Beirut’s southern suburbs.

Hezbollah and Iran’s deterrence strategy matched

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for almost 20 years after the end of the 2006 war. But among the profound changes caused by the 7th October attacks was *******’s determination not to accept restrictions on the wars it would wage in response. America, its most important ally, also put almost no restrictions on the supply or use of the weapons it kept on providing.

Nasrallah and Iran ******* to see what had happened. They did not understand how ******* had changed. They sought to impose a war of attrition on *******, and succeeded for almost a year. Then on 17th September ******* broke out of it by triggering the miniature ****** built into the network of ******-trapped pagers its intelligence services had duped Hezbollah into buying.

Hezbollah was thrown off balance. Before it could react with the most powerful weapons Iran had provided, ******* ******* Nasrallah and most of his key lieutenants, accompanied by massive strikes that destroyed arms dumps. That was followed by an invasion of South Lebanon and the wholesale destruction of Lebanese border villages as well as Hezbollah’s tunnel network.

Trump, Gaza and the future

A ceasefire in Lebanon is not necessarily a precursor to one in Gaza. Gaza is different. The war there is about more than security of the border, and ******** hostages.

It is also about revenge, about Benjamin Netanyahu’s political survival, and his government’s absolute rejection of ************ aspirations for independence.

The Lebanon ceasefire is fragile and deliberately paced to buy time for it to work. When the 60 days in which it is supposed to take effect ends, Donald Trump will be back in the Oval Office. President-elect Trump has indicated that he wants a ceasefire in Lebanon, but his precise plans have not yet emerged.

Reuters

People return to the city of Tyre, Lebanon after the ceasefire comes into effect

The Middle East is waiting for the ways he might affect the region. Some optimists hope that he might want to create a moment akin to President Nixon’s sensational visit to China in 1972 by reaching out to Iran.

The pessimists ***** he might abandon even the hollow genuflection that the US still makes to the idea of a creating an independent Palestine alongside ******* – the so-called two state solution. That might pave the way to annexation of those parts of the occupied ************ territories ******* wants, including much of the West Bank and northern Gaza.

What is certain though is that the

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more generations of war and violent ****** until the region’s fundamental political ruptures are faced and fixed. The biggest is the conflict between ******* and the Palestinians.

Benjamin Netanyahu and his government, along with most Israelis believe it is possible to dominate their enemies by pressing on to a military victory. Netanyahu is actively using force, unrestrained by the US, to alter the balance of power in the Middle East in *******’s favour.

In a conflict that has lasted more than a century both ****** and Jews have dreamt repeatedly of peace through military victory. Every generation has tried and *******. The catastrophic consequences of the ****** attacks on ******* on 7 October 2023 ripped away any pretence that the conflict could be managed while ******* continued to deny ************ rights to self-determination. The ceasefire in Lebanon is a respite. It is not a solution.

Top picture credit: Getty Images

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#IsraelHezbollah #ceasefire #respite #wider #solution

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