November 27, 2024

SHARE |

Israel and Lebanon Ceasefire Upends Regional Dynamics

AP Photo/Leo Correa

The Israeli cabinet convened to approve a U.S.-brokered ceasefire agreement between Israel and Lebanon, following over a year of artillery exchanges and recent ground clashes with Hezbollah. In a Tuesday evening statement, Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu announced Israel’s approval of the agreement. The accord, which requires both sides to cease their rocket, air, and artillery attacks and disengage on the ground over the coming 60 days, is formally between Israel and Lebanon, with some of the details still unclear, even as the various players attempt to portray it as favorable for their respective objectives. Hezbollah senior leadership referenced the group’s intention to avoid any “traps” placed into the nuanced language of the agreement. The Lebanese cabinet, which includes Hezbollah representation, is set to meet Wednesday to discuss the final details. Netanyahu claimed there were three reasons why Israel agreed to a ceasefire deal at the present moment: first, to focus on the Iranian threat; second, to replenish Israel’s military forces, weapons, and equipment; and third, to divorce the war in Lebanon from the war in Gaza.

Hezbollah is classified by the U.S. as a designated foreign terrorist organization, and international diplomats assert it is the responsibility of the Lebanese government to implement the accord – even though Hezbollah’s militia remains outside the formal government command structure. Netanyahu approved the plan despite the opinions of hardliners in his governing coalition – most notably National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir – who regarded the deal as a “big mistake” and “a historic missed opportunity to eradicate Hezbollah.” If the pact is implemented, as designed, within the 60-day implementation period, 60,000 displaced Israelis reportedly would be permitted to return to their homes near the Lebanon border, and the estimated 1.2 million people displaced from Lebanon, including those in southern Lebanon and those who fled Israeli air strikes on Beirut and the Bekaa Valley, would be able to return home as well. A joint statement from U.S. President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron said that the ceasefire “will create the conditions to restore lasting calm and allow residents in both countries to return safely to their homes on both sides of the Blue Line.”

Lebanon reportedly approved the proposal even though the pact contradicts vows made by Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem to uphold the stance of his predecessor, Hassan Nasrallah – who was killed in a late September Israeli air strike – to continue attacking Israel until it ends its operations against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Hezbollah has experienced significant setbacks at the hands of an intensified Israeli air and ground campaign since mid-September. Still, its military wing retains the capability to fire several hundred rockets per day on Israeli targets, causing damage and casualties. Israel’s military campaign included a covert operation in September that triggered sabotaged pagers and walkie-talkies to explode, killing at least 30 and injuring several hundred Hezbollah members, airstrikes that decimated Hezbollah’s leadership ranks, and a ground offensive in south Lebanon that sought to destroy Hezbollah’s military infrastructure, although at a significant cost to the lives of troops in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

Netanyahu supported the agreement because, as widely reported in regional and international media, it seems to grant Israel the bulk of its demands. Additionally, there is a growing sense of combat fatigue on all sides, and recently there have been reports of Israeli reservists refusing to report for duty, placing further strain on an already exhausted IDF. Despite the insistence by Israeli hardliners to continue fighting, Netanyahu, other political leaders, and senior IDF leaders consistently claimed the goals of Israel’s campaign in Lebanon were limited to rendering northern Israel safe for displaced citizens to return to their homes near the Lebanon border. Israeli leaders claimed they did not seek to achieve the disarmament or dismantlement as a political or even a military force within Lebanon. As such, it was perhaps politically necessary for Netanyahu to accept this agreement with Lebanon to facilitate the resettlement of displaced Israelis in the north.

The draft accord, published by Israeli public broadcasting network Kan, contains provisions intended to ensure that UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war, is fully implemented – including its core assertion that Hezbollah’s militia does not operate south of the Litani River (about 18 miles from the Israel-Lebanon border). Because the Lebanese Armed Forces and the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) did not prevent Hezbollah from reinfiltrating the border areas, this will be an issue that receives close scrutiny during the duration of the proposed ceasefire.

Israel demanded–and apparently obtained–language in the new agreement specifying that all imports and production of weapons into or within Lebanon be controlled by the LAF. Negotiators reportedly also included similar permissions for Lebanon to “defend itself” from Israeli violations of the agreement. Moreover, the accord assigns the LAF to “monitor and enforce these conditions, and dismantle any military infrastructure that is not under the control of the Lebanese government.”

Perhaps most significantly, the pact establishes a five-party “monitoring committee” within the framework of UNSCR 1701 that would include France, which has always played a key role in its former mandate territory of Lebanon, but would be chaired by the United States. Netanyahu and his allies likely calculate that U.S. officials will almost always adopt Israel’s accounts of Hezbollah violations due to their close intelligence and military cooperation.

Israeli and U.S. leaders also envision that the accord will sideline and marginalize Iran’s influence and reach within Lebanon and throughout the broader region. In his Tuesday statement accepting the pact, Netanyahu stated that Israel would now be able to focus its efforts more intently on Iran itself, including a determined effort to ensure Iran does not acquire a working nuclear weapon.

Israeli leaders reportedly believe that the U.S.’s chairmanship of the ceasefire monitoring committee will allow for the support of any Israeli action against attempts by Iran and Hezbollah to rearm the group through Syria or by other means. Any Syrian cooperation to help Iran resupply Hezbollah with rockets, missiles, armed drones, or other weaponry would also be referred to Washington to address as a violation. U.S. involvement in Israel-Hezbollah disputes is sure to further influence Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad to continue his efforts to occupy a political and military middle ground between Iran and Arab states that are allied with the United States to varying degrees.

Defying expectations of some experts that Iran would seek to sabotage the new accord by any means necessary, Tehran appears to have chosen a different course of action. In recent weeks, Tehran has sent a succession of senior officials, including Ali Larijani, a key adviser to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, to Beirut and Damascus to state the Leader’s position that Iran would not seek to block an accord that the Beirut government and Hezbollah find acceptable. Iranian leaders likely assess that the accord will be difficult to implement, and Iran can help Hezbollah rearm and rebuild over a long period of time. Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – Quds Force (IRGC-QF) commanders might believe they can find ways to defy any ongoing Israeli operations against weapons resupply channels in Syria or elsewhere and build Hezbollah’s military capabilities to pre-October 7 levels.

However, Hezbollah and Iran’s possible acceptance of the agreement might limit Hezbollah’s ability to continue to play a broader pro-Tehran role throughout the region. Having acceded to the new pact, Qassem, whose ties to Iran are different in nature than those of his predecessor, Nasrallah, is likely to focus more on preserving Hezbollah’s autonomy and decision-making influence within Lebanon than on mentoring and assisting other Axis of Resistance partners. Hezbollah under Nasrallah was a regional actor, working closely with the IRGC-QF, intervening on behalf of other Axis of Resistance partners in Iraq and Yemen, and helping the Assad regime push back the 2011-armed rebellion.

It is not only Tehran’s long-term intent to rebuild Hezbollah that clouds the prospects for the pact to bring long-term stability. The accepted agreement places significant responsibilities on the LAF as the key implementing organization – particularly to work with the United Nations peacekeeping force UNIFIL to prevent Hezbollah from re-infiltrating areas south of the Litani or importing or manufacturing weapons. This is a burden that the LAF, which in the past has sometimes fractured along communal lines, likely cannot bear. The U.S. provides the LAF with funds to pay some of its salaries and has supplied the force with mostly older and surplus U.S. weaponry as is common with various initiatives to build partner capacity; however, the army suffers from severe limitations. Its manpower and combat capabilities are modest, and commanders have told journalists that they do not believe that the LAF’s role is to “confront” Hezbollah’s militia in armed combat to prevent violations of a ceasefire pact but rather to provide security in the south. The LAF’s difficulties, as well as similar limitations on the part of UNIFIL, explain why Israel insisted on the prerogative to attack Hezbollah in the event of future violations of the new agreement, which would jeopardize the ceasefire. Accordingly, the LAF and UNIFIL’s drawbacks, and Israel’s insistence that it will remain on a war footing, could mean that the new agreement will not endure over the long term.