Why a Ceasefire in Lebanon Gives Me Hope
By Paul Salem
Last week, as I made my way to Beirut airport, I drove through bombed out streets in an empty city. The Lebanese national airline still bravely flew in and out, its planes weaving their way between Israeli airstrikes. I boarded my flight to attend a conference, hoping we would make it out safely. I left behind a population that had paid a very heavy price for 13 months of war between the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and Israel: thousands of dead and injured, thousands of homes and businesses destroyed, and over 1.2 million displaced.
For most of those 13 months, the U.S. has tried to mediate a ceasefire, so I had little reason to hope that an end to this fighting was imminent. But history can sometimes take positive turns. Like millions in Lebanon – and, I’m sure, in Israel as well – I was overwhelmed with mixed emotions to hear that a ceasefire had finally been reached. I mourn the thousands who paid with their lives. But today, as the guns fall silent, I am hopeful and happy for tens of thousands of people who will be able to return to their homes and can now start rebuilding their lives.
The deal is a rare diplomatic win for the outgoing Biden administration, which has struggled to project power and statesmanship during the year-plus of violence that’s wracked the region since Hamas attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing more than 1,200 people and taking 254 hostages. Hezbollah, a Lebanese political party as well as an armed militia that is equipped, trained and financed by Iran, joined on the side of Hamas the next day, launching rockets on northern Israel.
A successful deal will enable 60,000 Israelis and around 1.2 million Lebanese to return to their towns and villages. On the Lebanese side, many of those towns and villages have been leveled and will require a massive reconstruction effort to render them habitable again; several Israeli towns and areas have also been damaged and will require rebuilding.
A massive blow to Hezbollah
It’s not surprising that Hezbollah is seeking to spin the ceasefire as a victory. In their telling, the group fought the mighty Israel Defense Forces – backed by the world’s superpower – for more than a year. They paid a heavy price, but they boast that they inflicted damage on Israel to the last hour with daily missile and drone barrages, and inflicted significant casualties to Israeli troops that infiltrated southern Lebanese villages.
But in any sober assessment, there is little doubt that Iran’s main proxy in the Middle East has been dealt a staggering blow. Hezbollah has lost the bulk of its leadership and much of its fighting force; lost control of the critical border area near to Israel; and lost a large portion of its strategic stock of missiles. Meanwhile, the Lebanese citizens that it claimed to protect – the large Shiite community in south Lebanon, Beirut and the eastern Bekaa Valley that makes up a third of the county’s population – was almost entirely displaced.
The Israel-Hezbollah deal also gives some hope that an Israel-Hamas deal to end the war in Gaza might be more within reach. After Iran encouraged Hezbollah to go for a ceasefire, it is likely advising the same to Hamas, which it also supports with money, arms and training. Tehran wants to dial down the tension with Israel, especially as a hard-line Trump administration is moving into power and may back Israel taking further military action against the Iranian regime.
Under the terms of today’s ceasefire, over the next 60 days, Hezbollah must withdraw its fighters from Lebanese areas bordering Israel; Israel must withdraw its forces from Lebanon; and the Lebanese Army, assisted by United Nations forces already in the country, is required to secure that Lebanese border area.
The Lebanese Army is one of the few national institutions that enjoys widespread political support among an otherwise polarized society – as well as from the U.S. and other nations. It has not been able or willing to clash directly with Hezbollah – that would risk civil war – but it can now provide a strong security presence for Lebanon if Hezbollah sticks to the terms of the deal. If the ceasefire holds, it will give Lebanon an urgently needed opportunity to elect a president and form an effective government. That in turn will help it solicit international support for bolstering the national army, rebuilding what the war has destroyed and undertaking urgent economic and governance reforms that have crippled the Lebanese economy since 2019.
Will this time be different?
After the last Hezbollah-Israel war in 2006, a similar arrangement was made. But Hezbollah, backed by Iran and Syria, proceeded to systematically violate the agreement by building up its forces in the southern border area. This deal provides a stronger enforcement mechanism. At Israel’s insistence, the U.S. will head an international committee to supervise the implementation of the agreement. Israel also secured a guarantee from the U.S. that Israel retains the right to take military action in south Lebanon if Hezbollah violates it again.
If the initial 60-day implementation period succeeds, the ceasefire will be indefinitely extended, and the U.S. will mediate talks between Israel and Lebanon to demarcate their disputed land border. If the implementation fails, the destructive conflict will resume.
Hezbollah was built up by Iran to deter Israel from attacking the Islamic Republic directly. That deterrence is now gone. Israel has already struck Iranian soil, and might do so again. It is uncertain whether Iran will be willing, or able, to rebuild Hezbollah to anything like its previous power. The current ceasefire agreement is clear that no rearmament of Hezbollah is to be allowed.
Ultimately, the deal is a victory for outgoing President Joe Biden, who has been trying since last year to stop at least one of the open battles raging in the Middle East before leaving office. The fact that President-elect Donald Trump has been supportive of Israel, but has also warned that he wants these wars wrapped up before he assumes office, gave Biden’s diplomats extra leverage.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has also claimed the agreement as a victory, reminding his domestic audience that Israel decapitated Hezbollah’s leadership, greatly degraded its military capacities and pushed them out of the border zone from which they’ve been launching rockets on civilian areas and from which they could have launched a cross-border invasion at any time.
A precious opening for Lebanon
For Lebanon, the ceasefire might present a precious opening. Even before this war, the Lebanese economy had collapsed in 2019. A massive explosion in Beirut port in 2020 laid waste to a large section of the capital, and the country had been drifting without a president or a functioning government since 2022. A ceasefire that allows the election of a president and the formation of a new government could help rebuild an economy that has lost over 50% of its GDP since 2019, a currency that has lost 95% of its value, a collapsed banking system and a state with no functioning executive branch.
Yet as my fellow Lebanese celebrate the end of the war and try to resume some semblance of normal life, they know that many obstacles remain between a ceasefire and rebuilding functioning institutions. But I know that many Lebanese – and many friends of Lebanon that wish its people well – realize that this is a valuable opportunity. It will take concerted effort from political parties and members of the Lebanese parliament, and strong coordination among friends of Lebanon in the international community, to put Lebanon on a more sovereign, stable and prosperous path.
On the Israeli side, if Netanyahu survives the deal with Hezbollah despite opposition by right-wing parties at home, he might feel empowered to face down extremists who have long threatened to bring down his governing coalition if he makes a deal with Hamas.
Israeli military leaders have assessed that after 13 months of fighting, Hamas is no longer an organized military force. But additional months of fighting will not eliminate it either, and a deal is the only way to return alive the remaining hostages taken by Hamas on Oct. 7. Since Trump has made it clear that he wants these wars to end before he enters the White House, Netanyahu is also presumably wary of getting off on the wrong foot with the second Trump administration.
A deal in Lebanon, followed by a deal in Gaza, could open the door for even more positive diplomacy in the Middle East. The big prize would be a three-way deal between the U.S., Saudi Arabia and Israel that would include normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel. That can only happen if an Israeli leader is willing to countenance some form of statehood for the Palestinians, since the Saudis have made that a condition of normalization.
I will “take the win” of a rare ceasefire in a turbulent region. I look forward to visiting families and towns that will be rebuilding their lost lives; I am sure many in Israel will be doing the same.
I can only hope that the civilians in Gaza will soon be able to have some similar good news. And I have faith that the people of Israel and Palestine, and the region as a whole, can find a better path than attack and counterattack and repeated rounds of violence that just raise the walls of hate higher, and push the horizon of true security farther and farther away.
Paul Salem is vice president for international engagement at the Middle East Institute, the oldest Washington-based nonpartisan think tank focused on the Middle East. He is based in Beirut.