As Trump Prepares to Take Office Middle East Tensions Begin to Ease
by Dan Berger, The Epoch Times, November 27, 2024
Israel and Hezbollah have commenced a cease-fire that ends more than a year of cross-border air and rocket attacks and two months of Israel’s ground war to drive the Hezbollah terrorist group away from Israel’s northern frontier.
The cease-fire came into effect at 4 a.m. local time on Nov. 27 (9 p.m. ET on Nov. 26).
The deal calls for Israel to evacuate Lebanese territory within 60 days, and for the Lebanese army to move in and secure the area.
Lebanon has committed to having its army continue Israel’s work of destroying Hezbollah’s fortifications near the Israeli border, including tunnels meant to enable an Oct. 7-style attack.
President Joe Biden, in announcing the deal, emphasized that Hezbollah will not be allowed to threaten Israel’s security over the next 60 days, nor rebuild its terrorist infrastructure.
Civilians on both sides, Biden said, “will soon be able to safely return to their communities and begin to rebuild their homes, their schools, their farms, their businesses and their very lives.”
“We’ve determined this conflict will not be just another cycle of violence,” he said.
Biden pledged that no U.S. troops would be deployed to southern Lebanon, but that the United States, France, and others would provide “necessary assistance” to implement the deal “fully and effectively.”
“Let me be clear: If Hezbollah or anyone else breaks the deal and poses a direct threat to Israel, then Israel retains the right to self-defense consistent with international law, just like any other country,” Biden said on Nov. 26.
Biden called for a similar cease-fire in Gaza to end the suffering there and said Hamas “has a choice to make.” The terrorist group must release the hostages, including the Americans among them, to end the fighting and bring about a “surge of humanitarian relief.”
The deal was reached after Biden’s envoy, Amos Hochstein, traveled to Lebanon and then Israel to confer with Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, empowered by Hezbollah to negotiate on its behalf, and then with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Netanyahu’s office said the Israeli Cabinet approved the deal, 10–1.
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A senior U.S. administration official distinguished the agreement from that of 2006, after which Hezbollah never withdrew northward from the Israeli border region. The international community will remain engaged through what he called a “tripartite mechanism,” chaired by the United States and coordinating directly with the Lebanese army to monitor their occupation of the border zone and the withdrawal of Hezbollah’s heavy weaponry from it.
The French and U.S. militaries will coordinate with the Lebanese army. They and other countries will provide equipment, training, and financial support to the Lebanese army to strengthen it enough to carry out its task.
The international community will also support the rebuilding of south Lebanon, the official said.
“Hezbollah is extremely weak at this moment, both militarily and politically, and this is the opportunity for Lebanon to reestablish its sovereignty over its territory,” he said.
He acknowledged that Israel’s ultimate goal, after Hezbollah’s attack on Israel began after Oct. 7, 2023, was to return people to their homes in northern Israel “as safely and securely as possible” in a “durable cease-fire that they can trust.”
Reports emerged on Nov. 24 that a deal was close. Netanyahu was in agreement and planned to present it to his Cabinet on Nov. 25.
The agreement aims to end the fighting, which has killed more than 3,500 Lebanese—more than half Hezbollah fighters, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF)—and more than 70 Israelis plus 50 IDF soldiers killed in the offensive. The war forced between 60,000 and 80,000 residents of Israeli border communities from their homes for more than a year.
Under the agreement, Hezbollah must withdraw its forces north of the Litani River. That would put the terrorist group 10 to 15 miles from most of Israel’s northern frontier.
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