In Lebanon, Israel and Hezbollah agreed on a ceasefire

A ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah is believed to have begun in Lebanon on Wednesday, November 27 at 4 a.m. local time (3 a.m. Paris time), after more than a year of cross-border hostilities and two months of open war. between the Israeli army and the Lebanese armed formation.

The time of the truce, for which the United States and France have been working for weeks, was announced by the American President, Joe Biden, who welcomed the announcement in the evening, by the office of the Israeli Prime Minister, Benyamin Netanyahu, on the approval of the ceasefire by the Israeli security cabinet.

In a joint statement, Mr. Biden and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron said their countries would ensure that the ceasefire agreement in Lebanon was “fully implemented and enforced”. They assured that this agreement “would protect” Israel of the « menace » of Hezbollah, committing to work to strengthen “abilities” of the Lebanese army and the recovery of the country’s economy.

In a message published on the social network “without delay” to the election of a president in order to restore the “sovereignty” of the country.

Mr. Biden also affirmed on Tuesday that the United States would lead a new initiative “in the days to come” “to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza, the release of hostages and an end to the war without Hamas in power”.

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati welcomed a “fundamental step” towards regional stability, and announced a strengthening of the presence of the Lebanese army in the South, on the border with Israel.

Exchanges of fire before the ceasefire comes into effect

Hezbollah assured that it would continue to fight Israel as long as the offensive in Gaza continued, while saying it was open to a ceasefire. Without reacting immediately to the announcement of the ceasefire, the Shiite movement claimed responsibility in the evening for shooting towards the north of Israel as well as the launching of drones on “sensitive military targets” in Tel Aviv, “in response to the targeting of the capital Beirut and the massacres committed by the Israeli enemy against civilians.”

A little later, and before the ceasefire supposedly came into effect, strikes targeted the southern suburbs of Beirut early, according to images broadcast by AFPTV, shortly after calls to evacuate an area in central Beirut and another in its southern suburbs by the Israeli army.

Before the final Israeli green light to the truce agreement, Mr. Netanyahu had said that the duration of the ceasefire would depend “about what will happen in Lebanon”. “In full agreement with the United States, we maintain complete freedom of military action” in Lebanon, he added: “If Hezbollah violates the agreement and tries to rearm, we will attack. »

A truce in Lebanon will allow Israel to “focus on the Iranian threat”and« intensifier » its pressure on 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. He welcomed the fact that Hezbollah, whose leadership Israel has largely decimated, notably killing its charismatic leader Hassan Nasrallah at the end of September, “be more the same”. “We sent them back decades”he argued.

The announcement of the agreement came after Israel on Tuesday shelled the center of Beirut and its southern suburbs, a stronghold of Hezbollah, like never before since it launched a bombing campaign on September 23 targeting the movement in the neighboring country, then began ground operations in the South on September 30. Bombings in the heart of Beirut have killed at least ten people, according to Lebanese authorities.

A strike again targeted a building in the central shopping district of Hamra in the evening, noted a journalist from Agence France Presse. The Israeli army reported new projectile fire targeting the national territory from Lebanon.

“A historic error”, according to the Israeli security minister

Israel was under international pressure to accept a deal. The American news site Axios had indicated before the announcement of the agreement that its project 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, according to Axios.

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.

Figure of the far right allied with Mr. Netanyahu, Itamar Ben Gvir, minister of national security, criticized the agreement “a historic error”. The mayor of Metula, an Israeli town in the north emptied of its inhabitants by Hezbollah fire, also argued that he would not establish lasting peace in the region.

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 says it wants 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 since September 2024. Hostilities have displaced some 900,000 people, according to the UN. On the Israeli side, 82 soldiers and 47 civilians were killed in thirteen months in clashes with Hezbollah, according to the authorities.