Peace In Our Time? Probably Not
The ceasefire agreement between Israel and Lebanon is bringing hope to the region, but is this hope misplaced?
A “ceasefire” between Israel and Lebanon was agreed to on Tuesday, November 26th that went into effect on the following day at 4am Israel time. Unfortunately, the ceasefire agreement isn’t worth the paper it was printed on.
First, the agreement was signed between Israel and Lebanon only. Hezbollah is NOT a party to the agreement, and can therefore claim that it never agreed to stop the fighting. In fact, on Thursday, November 28th, Hezbollah began preparing to fire medium range missiles into Israel. The Israeli Air Force prevented this from happening by destroying the launchers.
Hezbollah is already calling this ceasefire a victory and are celebrating their win over Israel. There are already images of Hezbollah members with their flags dancing in the streets to celebrate. Expect victorious images of Hezbollah fighters back in their positions overlooking Israel in the coming hours and days.
Another thing to take into consideration is the fact that the ceasefire is supposed to last 60 days. This is to enable several things to occur:
1. Allow an orderly transfer of control of territory from the IDF to the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF).
2. Enable Lebanese civilians to return to their homes in the south without being impeded by IDF troops.
3. Create a mechanism whereby Israel and Lebanon can communicate via a 3rd party to report on violations of the ceasefire, and enable the LAF to get out of the way before Israel attacks (in the event that the LAF is unwilling and/or unable to deal with the threat).
Welp, that all fell apart only a few hours after the ceasefire came into place. Hezbollah jeep patrols were seen driving around several border towns, including Kfar Kila and Jebel el Meis. These were in closed military zones where civilians had been completely cleared out of. The IDF promptly fired at them, disabling at least one jeep.
In addition, the Lebanese government, led by Nabih Berri, is calling on residents of the south to return to their homes. This is a huge problem.
People are currently streaming back to the south WHILE the IDF is still there. The potential for an accident to happen is huge, with random civilians potentially trying to kidnap or attack IDF troops, and IDF troops firing back at them, thereby causing an international incident.
Palestinian civilians attacked and kidnapped Israelis and IDF troops on October 7th 2023, so there’s a real possibility that Lebanese civilians will attempt to do the same thing in this case.
But perhaps most worrying is the fact that tens of thousands of Hezbollah fighters are coming back to the south, and that they will have access to their weapons caches. Israel has found hundreds of these caches, but it’s likely only a drop in the bucket in terms of overall weapons capacity.
Why is this important? Let’s look at what happened in Gaza.
When the IDF orders people to evacuate a neighborhood or town, it means the fighters were leaving without their means of fighting – i.e. their weapons. That’s why the IDF has been forced to go back and recapture towns and villages in Gaza – because as the terrorists went back home, they retrieved the weapons they hid, and continued to fight. Members of Hezbollah, who were also evacuated without their guns, now also have the opportunity to pick up the weapons they hid throughout southern Lebanon and fight the IDF in close quarter, urban combat.
Also, Hezbollah isn’t afraid to fight wearing civilian clothes, as shown now and in 2006. With hundreds of thousands of people streaming back into southern Lebanon causing absolute chaos, the IDF is stuck in the middle among swarms of hostile Lebanese. This creates the perfect environment for Hezbollah members to attack IDF troops from inside the civilian population. The IDF will respond, likely accidentally hit civilians, and the world will blame Israel. Given that this will be happening as Israel is evacuating, it will make the IDF appear to be a dog running away from the fight with its tail between its legs.
So why did Israel sign on to this deal before Hezbollah was destroyed? Well, Israel is running out of ammunition and needs the support of the US and other Western countries. In fact, the Biden administration stopped shipments of tank and artillery rounds in May 2024 and is holding up the transfer of other equipment. So, for Israel to have ability to defend itself, it needed to sign on to this ceasefire, which is likely to fall apart.
The next days and weeks will see hundreds of thousands of Lebanese civilians as well as Hezbollah fighters go back to southern Lebanon. Hezbollah now has the ability to go back to the position of power it had prior to the war and continue to menace northern Israel.
I hope I’m wrong….