The ceasefire agreement between Israel and Lebanon, or rather between Israel and Hezbollah, came into effect on the morning of 27 November 2024. Though it is not expected to face major hurdles in coming weeks, it remains precarious and may not endure.
The ceasefire was made possible because each party found it advantageous, though for different reasons. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu realised that greater progress on the ground in Lebanon would mean heavy Israeli losses. It had also become clear that after Israel’s initial intelligence successes in September, its ground and air attacks were bringing diminishing returns and had no significant impact on the scope and quality of Hezbollah’s daily rocket attacks on Israel. Finally, the US apparently had warned Netanyahu that he did not have the same free rein in Lebanon that he enjoys in the Gaza Strip.
Hezbollah similarly realised that prolonging the fighting would not add qualitatively to its achievements on the ground. To increase the cost of the war for Israel would have required a qualitative escalation that, in turn, would have invited fiercer Israeli attacks on Lebanon. Moreover, Hezbollah had already sustained heavy losses to its command structure, combat forces and weapons depots, as well as its financial and social-services infrastructure, to say nothing of the widespread destruction inflicted on Lebanon as a whole. Also crucial was pressure from Iran, which calculated that an ongoing war in Lebanon could jeopardise its regional position, fatally weaken Hezbollah politically in Lebanon, and perhaps even open up Iranian territory to attack. These concerns were heightened by the re-election of Donald Trump as president, prompting Iran to make overtures to demonstrate its willingness to negotiate and contain regional instability.
Although the parties have divergent motivations for maintaining the ceasefire, aspects of the agreement call into question its durability. Firstly, some clauses of the agreement are ambiguous as to scope—that is, whether they apply south of the Litani River or to all of Lebanon. They may be interpreted to mean that the Lebanese state is obligated to disarm Hezbollah fully throughout Lebanese territory, which could trigger clashes between Hezbollah and the Lebanese army and security forces, not only in the south, but wherever the organisation is based.
Additionally, the 60-day phase-in of the agreement leaves room for the sudden renewal of hostilities, especially since Hezbollah and Israel hold divergent interpretations of their obligations and rights. Hezbollah believes that its fighters in the south can return to their villages unmolested, while Israel claims the right to continue striking at threats, which in its view includes Hezbollah operatives. And in fact, four days into the ceasefire, Israel had already carried out several airstrikes on Lebanese territory. Israel is no doubt further emboldened by its reported side agreement with the US, which likely gives it guarantees of American support to confront future threats that go unaddressed by the Lebanese state.
Whether the ceasefire represents a victory for Israel or Hezbollah remains hotly debated. But since the agreement does not put an end to the larger, multi-front war, this question is premature.
The Netanyahu government believes that with the agreement, it has definitively delinked the Lebanese and Gaza fronts and sufficiently deterred Hezbollah, perhaps for another two decades if the aftermath of the 2006 ceasefire is any indication. Not only did Israel severely erode Hezbollah’s capabilities, the Lebanese public is loath to be dragged into a wider war by the organisation.
Hezbollah, in contrast, believes that it was its steadfastness alone that forced the Israelis to sign the ceasefire. In its eyes, Netanyahu failed to achieve his chief goal of the war, which was to destroy Hezbollah and force its surrender, and Hezbollah is confident that it can rebuild its military infrastructure and weapons capabilities.
In fact, the war exposed weaknesses on both sides. It showed that the project of the axis of resistance was not based on solid strategic foundations and that the strength of the axis was inflated. Hezbollah’s allies in Iran, Iraq, Yemen and Syria did not take tangible steps to support its resistance. Moreover, although Hezbollah was not crushed as a force, it may emerge politically weaker in Lebanon and the wider region. The same applies to Iran: it could not prove itself to be equal to Israel and its allies were relatively ineffective in confronting Israeli aggression.
The war also highlighted the limits of Israeli power, showing that the early hopes that the Israeli right pinned on the war were unfounded. Netanyahu accepted the ceasefire without achieving his goal of crushing Hezbollah and thereby altering the entire external security climate for Israel. Even the return of displaced Israelis to the north is not inevitable, but depends on the durability of the ceasefire.
*This is a summary of a policy brief originally written in Arabic available here.