The truce for which the United States and France have been working for weeks was scheduled to begin at 3 a.m. (French time) this Wednesday morning.
“If Hezbollah violates the agreement and tries to rearm, we will attack.”
“This evening, I will present to the cabinet for approval a draft ceasefire in Lebanon”, the “duration of which […] depends on what happens in Lebanon,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had declared shortly before. “In full agreement with the United States, we maintain complete freedom of military action” in Lebanon, he added: “If Hezbollah violates the agreement and attempts to rearm, we will attack. »
«Plus d’excuses»
A truce in Lebanon will allow Israel to “focus on the Iranian threat”, and to “intensify” its pressure on Palestinian Hamas, against which it is leading a deadly offensive in the Gaza Strip in retaliation for its unprecedented attack on Israeli soil on October 7, 2023, he said, after a meeting of the security cabinet.
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati called on the international community to “act quickly” for “immediate implementation of a ceasefire” following this announcement.
Israel is under international pressure to accept a deal. The G7 called on Tuesday for an “immediate ceasefire”, while the head of diplomacy of the European Union, Josep Borrell, judged that the Israeli government had “no more excuses” to refuse it.
A 60-day truce
According to the American news site Axios, the American project negotiated in recent days provides for a 60-day truce during which Hezbollah and the Israeli army would withdraw from southern Lebanon to allow the Lebanese army to deploy there. The plan includes the establishment of an international committee to monitor its implementation, Axios added, specifying that the United States would have given assurances of its support for Israeli military action in the event of hostile acts by Hezbollah.
International diplomacy has relied on UN Security Council Resolution 1701 which ended the previous war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006, and stipulates that only the Lebanese army and peacekeepers can be deployed on the southern border of Lebanon.
A figure among the far-right allies of the Netanyahu government, the Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, estimated on Monday that a ceasefire would be “a big mistake”.
60,000 residents of northern Israel displaced
The war that has raged since October 2023 in the Gaza Strip between Israel and Hamas has spread to Lebanon after a year of exchanges of fire on both sides of the Israeli-Lebanese border. Israel claims to want to neutralize Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, which opened a front against it on October 8, 2023 in support of Hamas, to allow the return of some 60,000 inhabitants of the north driven out by its fire.
According to the Lebanese Ministry of Health, nearly 3,800 people have been killed in Lebanon since October 2023, most of them since September. The hostilities have displaced some 900,000 people, according to the UN. On the Israeli side, 82 soldiers and 47 civilians were killed in 13 months.
Earlier in the day, residents of northern Israel interviewed said they were opposed to a ceasefire: “it would be a serious mistake until Hezbollah has been completely eliminated,” judged Maryam Younnes, a 29 year old student.
More shots from both sides on Tuesday
The truce comes as Israel shelled the center of Beirut and its southern suburbs, a stronghold of Hezbollah, on Tuesday like never before since it launched a massive bombing campaign on September 23 targeting the movement in the neighboring country, then there. began ground operations in the south on September 30. Shortly after Netanyahu's statement, another strike targeted a building in the Hamra shopping district in the heart of Beirut. Israeli strikes also targeted two border crossings between Syria and Lebanon.
According to the Israeli army, more than 20 projectiles were also fired from Lebanon against Israel during the day. And the army again reported projectile fire targeting the national territory from Lebanon on Tuesday evening after Benjamin Netanyahu's televised statement. As multiple air raid sirens sounded in the north and center of the country, the army said it had intercepted three projectiles fired from Lebanon.
