Both Israel and Hezbollah are claiming that they have achieved their goals with the ceasefire agreement. Hezbollah says it is still standing, and that the agreement does not demand its total disarmament north of the Litani River; the group lives to fight another day. The agreement according to Hezbollah merely repeats UN Security Resolution 1701. Israel claims it has now degraded Hezbollah so much, whittling down the huge stockpile of weapons — rockets, missiles, mortars — that the group possessed on October 8, 2023, so that it will be unable to replenish its stock. Furthermore, with the group having to pull back north of the Litani River, it will no longer threaten northern Israel, and 80,000 displaced Israelis will now be able to return to their homes in the north. With the ceasefire, more Israeli soldiers, exhausted by fourteen months of constant combat, will be able to rest and recuperate. And with the agreement, Hamas knows that the IDF can now concentrate on dismantling what remains of it, and is likely to now declare itself ready for its own ceasefire with Israel.
More on the agreement, and conflicting understandings of its significance, can be found here: “What, exactly, does the Lebanon cease fire agreement say? The text, Netanyahu, Biden and Hezbollah all disagree with each other.” Elder of Ziyon, November 26, 2024:
Hezbollah media is claiming that the cease-fire agreement that Israel agreed to is a victory for Hezbollah. they say it is just implementing UN Security Council Resolution 1701 and not going beyond that, as Israel had demanded.
Lebanon’s L’Orient-Le Jour obtained a copy of the agreement (I have no reason to not believe its accuracy.) Based on their text, hezbollah [sic] has a point. In fact, it might be considered 1701-Minus.
Here’s the full text:
• Hezbollah and all other armed groups present on Lebanese territory will refrain from conducting any offensive actions against Israel.
• In return, Israel will not carry out any military offensive against targets in Lebanon, whether on land, in the air, or at sea.
• Both Israel and Lebanon recognize the importance of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701.
• These commitments do not waive Israel’s and Lebanon’s inherent right to self-defense.
• The Lebanese security forces and the Lebanese Army will be the only entities authorized to carry weapons or deploy troops in southern Lebanon.
• The sale, provision, or production of weapons and related material in Lebanon will be supervised by the Lebanese government.
• All unauthorized facilities related to the production of weapons and related materials will be dismantled.
• All non-compliant military infrastructure and positions will be dismantled, and all unauthorized weapons will be confiscated.
• A committee approved by both Israel and Lebanon will be established to oversee and assist in the implementation of these commitments.
• Israel and Lebanon will report any violations of these commitments to the committee and to the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).
• Lebanon will deploy official security forces and the Lebanese Army along all border crossing points and the defined line for the southern zone, as outlined in the deployment plan.
• Israel will gradually withdraw from the southern zone of the Blue Line within a period of up to 60 days.
• The United States will enhance indirect negotiations between Israel and Lebanon to achieve an internationally recognized delineation of the land border.
The major difference between this and 1701 is the committee to oversee the implementation of the other provisions. We do not know if this committee has any power.
On the other hand, 1701 called for Hezbollah to be entirely disarmed, not just south of the Litani:
full implementation of the relevant provisions of the Taif Accords, and of resolutions 1559 (2004) and 1680 (2006), that require the disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon, so that, pursuant to the Lebanese cabinet decision of 27 July 2006, there will be no weapons or authority in Lebanon other than that of the Lebanese State;
That is a huge difference….
This new agreement does not require, as UNSC 1701 did, the disarmament of Hezbollah everywhere in Lebanon. The agreement no longer accepts the Blue Line as the boundary between Israel and Lebanon, but leaves that boundary open to negotiation, including the area in Israel known as Shebaa Farms that Hezbollah argues belong to Lebanon.
President Biden said it quite differently:
Biden said “If Hezbollah or anyone else breaks the deal and poses a direct threat to Israel, Israel retains the right to self-defense, consistent with international law — just like any country when facing a terrorist group pledged to that country’s destruction.”
Would Hezbollah rearming, say, in the far north of Lebanon, with short-range missiles not able to reach Israel, be considered to “pose a direct threat to Israel”? Would Hezbollah setting up anti-missile systems around its bases “pose a direct threat to Israel”? Probably not. According to Netanyahu, almost anything Hezbollah does to strengthen itself militarily could be a justification for an Israeli attack, whereas Biden speaks only about a “direct threat to Israel.” What if Hezbollah were to build tunnels from Lebanon into Syria, in order at some future time to have Iranian weapons smuggled into Lebanon? Are these tunnels a “direct threat” to Israel?
The American government has, in a side letter to Israel whose contents are being kept secret, apparently agreed to guarantee Israel’s right to attack whenever it feels a move by Hezbollah constitutes a danger to the state; that is a lower standard than the requirement of a “direct threat” mentioned by Biden.
In this agreement, much will depend on how much miltiary and financial support is given to the Lebanese Army by Western and Sunni Arab states, to beef up its arsenal of weapons and the number of new soldiers it can recruit. Nothing was done in 2006 to strengthen that national army; it was unable to force the more powerful Hezbollah to move north of the Litani River. This time, with Hezbollah greatly weakened by relentless IDF airstrikes, that have killed dozens of its top commanders, and by IDF soldiers on the ground having seized or destroyed much of its weaponry, the Lebanese Army should be able to keep Hezbollah from infiltrating its forces south of the Litani River.
The 60-day ceasefire will test the ability of the Lebanese state to make Hezbollah keep to its promises: to remove all of its forces south of the Litani, and to cease all attacks on Israel. Unlike UNSC 1701, however, this agreement does not require Hezbollah to disarm its forces throughout Lebanon. So let’s see how Hezbollah behaves in the next 60 days. Will it again revert to type, trying to rearm, with Iranian arms smuggled from Syria, but taking care not to fire at Israel, or will it, having been so undermined by Israel’s ferocious response to its attacks, do what it did not do in 2006, and actually keep its promises?