The guns largely fell silent on Wednesday morning as a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah went in to effect after 14 months of war, leaving both sides to count the cost.
Lebanese prime minister, Najib Mikati, hailed “a new page” in history as displaced families flooded back to their homes in devastated regions of south Lebanon.
But the 13-point agreement – and a disputed supplemental understanding – have raised concerns that this round of hostilities could soon be followed by another.
Israeli operations in Lebanon will continue
Israel opened fire at what it said were suspected militants returning to southern Lebanon on Wednesday morning, an indication of tensions likely to arise while Israeli forces remain in Lebanon.
Israel has 60 days to withdraw under the terms of the deal, as Hezbollah moves its forces north of the Litani river and away from the border with Israel.
The terms of the deal – a beefed-up version of UN resolution 1701 that ended the last war in 2006 – would see the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers replace them. A committee made up of the UN, Lebanon, Israel, France and the US will monitor for violations.
Israel also says it retains the right to strike arms transfers to Hezbollah, and perceived efforts by the group to rearm or rebuild military infrastructure in south Lebanon. Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, has said civilian homes Israeli forces destroyed in the region should be considered military infrastructure that cannot be rebuilt.
The US has said it will back Israel’s right to punish violations of the deal, which Israel claims as an understanding separate to the main agreement. The Lebanese government says this is not agreed and rejects any infringements of its sovereignty.
Professor Kobi Michael, a military analyst at Israeli think-tanks the Institute for National Security Studies and the Misgav Institute, predicts the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) will continue operations in Lebanon indefinitely.
“The IDF will continue ‘mowing the grass’ after the 60 days and wherever the inspecting forces will not do their job,” he said, using a term originally coined for regular actions against militants in Gaza.
Dr Andreas Krieg, a senior lecturer at the School of Security Studies at King’s College London, said the deal had “a low threshold to break”, suggesting that Hezbollah fighters merely walking south of the Litani could be considered a violation.
Hezbollah will retain some presence in south Lebanon
Nabih Berri, the speaker of Lebanon’s parliament who played a key role in negotiations, said it would be “easier to relocate the Litani river further south than to displace Hezbollah northward”.
Supporters of the militant group have also mocked the idea that it could leave a region that is its heartland, containing its core constituencies and non-military networks, as well as much of its firepower.
Hezbollah has dominated Lebanon’s politics and weak national institutions for years, but the threadbare Lebanese army will now be expected to keep the peace, notes David Wood, a Lebanon analyst at the Crisis Group.
“This ceasefire agreement places most of the responsibility on the Lebanese army,” he said, noting that the army is expected to be ready to prevent a Hezbollah revival, eliminate weapons facilities and secure the border within 60 days.
“The Lebanese army is cash-strapped and under-resourced as Lebanon has been going through an economic crisis since 2019 that has impacted the army,” Wood said.
“At the very least, the Lebanese army is going to need a lot of support from the international community.”
Michael Young, senior editor at the Carnegie Middle East Centre based in Beirut, said the prohibition on Hezbollah could not be absolute.
“Young members of Hezbollah are not going to leave their villages, and nor is there a mechanism to filter these individuals,” he said.
“I think the main Israeli objective is to ensure that heavy weapons are removed from the south, and that these villages are not used as potential staging grounds for attacks against Israel.”
Many Israelis are not ready to return to homes in the north
As Lebanese civilians returned to their homes in the south, there was no equivalent rush of Israelis returning to northern areas that were reduced to ghost towns by Hezbollah fire.
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, declared the return of about 60,000 displaced Israelis to be the top priority of the war with Hezbollah, but many residents remain uncertain and angry at the deal. One resident told the BBC the agreement was an “irresponsible and hasty political decision”.
Statements from the military have advised caution to residents considering moving back to homes in the north. Dr Michael suggested most would return “not now and not soon”.
He added: “I think that most of them will prefer to see what will be there and how determined Israel and the IDF will be. There is huge frustration among them and they do not trust the government.”
While these communities remain displaced, a reminder of the failure of a key war aim and a drag on the economy while many are housed in state-funded temporary accommodation, hawkish elements of Israel’s hard-line government that want to continue attacks on Hezbollah could use their plight to push for further military action.
US involvement on supervisory committee
The major change from UN resolution 1701 that provided the framework of the ceasefire agreement is that the US has joined a committee that monitors violations.
US President Joe Biden said his administration would support Israeli action against Hezbollah if it breaks the rules. Donald Trump’s choice for ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, suggested a return of full-blown hostilities in case of a breach. “[Israel] retains the right to restart the fighting if Hezbollah breaks the truce,” he said.
Many of Trump’s senior cabinet appointees, such as secretary of state Marco Rubio and national security adviser Mike Waltz, are staunch supporters of Israel who have backed aggressive moves against Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran, and opposed pressure for ceasefires.
“For those critical of the 60-day Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire… note its expiration: 26 January, 2025,” Mike Dubowitz, head of hawkish pro-Israel think-tank the Foundation for Defence of Democracies, said on X, pointing out that the agreement ends after the Trump administration takes charge.
But Alistair Burt, UK’s former Middle East minister, suggested that having brokered the deal, Washington will be invested in its success.
“The Americans have put themselves in to this and are therefore taking some degree of risk and will not want to look foolish,” he said.
“Having taken this as far as they have, they will not want it to fail.”
Ongoing carnage in Gaza
While a measure of peace has broken out in Lebanon, the carnage continues in Gaza where more than 44,000 people, a majority of women and children, have reportedly been killed during Israel’s assault, which followed the deadly Hamas attacks of 7 October, 2023. Hezbollah joined the war in support of their ally.
The Lebanese group had pledged to continue attacks on Israel until a ceasefire in Gaza was agreed – a commitment it has now walked back with the truce deal.
But the ongoing devastation of Gaza – and the possibility of a permanent occupation and settlements, as some Israeli ministers have advocated – could lead to further attacks on Israel from Iran-allied militias such as the Houthis of Yemen. Palestinian militant groups based in Lebanon, where both Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad have a presence, could also launch attacks that would invite an Israeli response on Lebanese soil.
Netanyahu has said that he considers the decoupling of the fronts, and the isolation of Hamas from its ally, to be a major achievement, and is unlikely to feel pressure to extend the ceasefire to Gaza, Wood believes.
“The Lebanon ceasefire gives it a freer hand in Gaza rather than pushing it towards a ceasefire,” he said.
