The agreement of ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon is already in force. Over the next 60 days, troops on both sides will have to abandon south of the Litani River, which flows about 30 kilometers north of the border, and leave the Lebanese armed forces and a command composed of the UN and the American army controls this region which is today a battlefield.
But neither in Beirut nor in Tel Aviv are there high hopes that this agreement will put an end to a war that has raged for 14 months, closely linked to that of Gaza, and which is only the latest blow carried over four decades of clashes between the Lebanese side. -militias and the Zionist state. Even Benjamin Netanyahu himself does not trust the agreement approved this week. In his speech on Tuesday evening, the Israeli Prime Minister assured that his government would be able to resume the war as soon as Hezbollah “violates the agreement” and try to arm yourself”, “try to rebuild terrorist infrastructure near the border”, “launch a rocket” or “dig a tunnel”.
The president made his intentions clear even before his security cabinet approved the document: Israel will not only attack Hezbollah if it throws the first stone, but it will also strike Lebanon if it suspects the militia is currently rearming or rebuilding its infrastructure. “They tell me that Hezbollah will remain silent for a year or two, that it will become stronger and then it will attack us. But Hezbollah will not violate the agreement only if it shoots at us. You will be violating the agreement if you obtain weapons to shoot us in the future.. And we will respond vigorously to any violations,” he said.
However, the text that Israel approved on Tuesday makes no mention of the IDF’s right to intervene militarily in Lebanon, regardless of Hezbollah’s level of rearmament. To do this, Netanyahu seeks to rely on a letter that he expects from Joe Biden before leaving the White House: “With the full understanding of the United States, we maintain complete freedom of military action,” stressed the Prime Minister in his press release. .
Everything therefore indicates that this week’s ceasefire will only be a band-aid for the conflict. The solution that comes into effect today remember 2006when an armistice halted the Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon. In fact, the content of the document is based on UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended hostilities for 18 years, but which was not fully implemented by any party and which ended in a new war last year.
The current agreement does not provide a response to the challenges that have prevented the implementation of Resolution 1701. The text approved on Tuesday by Israel tasks the Lebanese government and its army with overseeing the supply and production of weapons to Hezbollah, dismantle unauthorized military installations and confiscate weapons. the weapons of the militia.
In the state Lebanon finds itself in, without an elected government for more than two years and with the armed forces overshadowed by the shadow of Hezbollah, these responsibilities seem impossible. Although a US official assured Tuesday evening that the United States would work with the Lebanese army to ensure that the ceasefire is not violated, the Lebanese armed forces expect a rigorous program of external financing and training before replacing Hezbollah in the south of the country.
Bringing war to Syria
The document also does not consider Syria’s role as an arms supplier to Hezbollah along its borders with Iran and Lebanon. With the current agreement, Israel does not have to stop bombing in Damascus and the border points of the Arab country, very frequent in recent months. This could be another point of Biden’s letter: on Tuesday evening, an adviser to the US president said that one of the priorities now would be for Iran to no longer use Syria as “an arms highway to Lebanon “.
And it already is. On Tuesday evening, an Israeli missile struck Lebanon’s three northern border crossings with Syria for the first time. Shortly after, U.S. Central Command struck a pro-Iranian militia arms depot in the country that serves as a Hezbollah arms corridor between Iran and Lebanon. It appears that as long as it takes Netanyahu to find an excuse to return to war in Lebanon, his army will continue to appease Hezbollah and Iran’s and Hamas’s allies wherever they are.
