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What to Know about the Ceasefire Deal between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah

People gather as cars drive past rubble from damaged buildings in Beirut's southern suburbs, after a ceasefire between Israel and Iran-backed group Hezbollah took effect at 0200 GMT on Wednesday after US President Joe Biden said both sides accepted an agreement brokered by the United States and France, in Lebanon, November 27, 2024. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
People gather as cars drive past rubble from damaged buildings in Beirut's southern suburbs, after a ceasefire between Israel and Iran-backed group Hezbollah took effect at 0200 GMT on Wednesday after US President Joe Biden said both sides accepted an agreement brokered by the United States and France, in Lebanon, November 27, 2024. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
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What to Know about the Ceasefire Deal between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah

People gather as cars drive past rubble from damaged buildings in Beirut's southern suburbs, after a ceasefire between Israel and Iran-backed group Hezbollah took effect at 0200 GMT on Wednesday after US President Joe Biden said both sides accepted an agreement brokered by the United States and France, in Lebanon, November 27, 2024. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
People gather as cars drive past rubble from damaged buildings in Beirut's southern suburbs, after a ceasefire between Israel and Iran-backed group Hezbollah took effect at 0200 GMT on Wednesday after US President Joe Biden said both sides accepted an agreement brokered by the United States and France, in Lebanon, November 27, 2024. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir

A ceasefire deal that went into effect on Wednesday could end more than a year of cross-border fighting between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group, raising hopes and renewing difficult questions in a region gripped by conflict.
The US- and France-brokered deal, approved by Israel late Tuesday, calls for an initial two-month halt to fighting and requires Hezbollah to end its armed presence in southern Lebanon, while Israeli troops are to return to their side of the border. It offers both sides an off-ramp from hostilities that have driven more than 1.2 million Lebanese and 50,000 Israelis from their homes.
An intense bombing campaign by Israel has left more than 3,700 people dead, many of them civilians, Lebanese officials say. Over 130 people have been killed on the Israeli side.
But while it could significantly calm the tensions that have inflamed the region, the deal does little directly to resolve the much deadlier war that has raged in Gaza since the Hamas attack on southern Israel in October 2023 that killed 1,200 people.
Hezbollah, which began firing scores of rockets into Israel the following day in support of Hamas, previously said it would keep fighting until there was a stop to the fighting in Gaza. With the new cease-fire, it has backed away from that pledge, in effect leaving Hamas isolated and fighting a war alone.
Here’s what to know about the tentative ceasefire agreement and its potential implications:
The terms of the deal
The agreement reportedly calls for a 60-day halt in fighting that would see Israeli troops retreat to their side of the border while requiring Hezbollah to end its armed presence in a broad swath of southern Lebanon. President Joe Biden said Tuesday that the deal is set to take effect at 4 a.m. local time on Wednesday (9 p.m. EST Tuesday).
Under the deal, thousands of Lebanese troops and U.N. peacekeepers are to deploy to the region south of the Litani River. An international panel led by the US would monitor compliance by all sides. Biden said the deal “was designed to be a permanent cessation of hostilities.”
Israel has demanded the right to act should Hezbollah violate its obligations, but Lebanese officials rejected writing that into the proposal. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that the military would strike Hezbollah if the UN peacekeeping force, known as UNIFIL, does not enforce the deal.
Lingering uncertainty
Hezbollah indicated it would give the ceasefire pact a chance, but one of the group's leaders said the group's support for the deal hinged on clarity that Israel would not renew its attacks.
“After reviewing the agreement signed by the enemy government, we will see if there is a match between what we stated and what was agreed upon by the Lebanese officials,” Mahmoud Qamati, deputy chair of Hezbollah’s political council, told the Qatari satellite news network Al Jazeera.
“We want an end to the aggression, of course, but not at the expense of the sovereignty of the state” of Lebanon, he said.
The European Union’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, said Tuesday that Israel’s security concerns had been addressed in the deal.
Where the fighting has left both sides After months of cross-border bombings, Israel can claim major victories, including the killing of Hezbollah’s top leader, Hassan Nasrallah, most of his senior commanders and the destruction of extensive militant infrastructure.
A complex attack in September involving the explosion of hundreds of walkie-talkies and pagers used by Hezbollah was widely attributed to Israel, signaling a remarkable penetration of the militant group.
The damage inflicted on Hezbollah has hit not only in its ranks, but the reputation it built by fighting Israel to a stalemate in the 2006 war. Still, its fighters managed to put up heavy resistance on the ground, slowing Israel’s advance while continuing to fire scores of rockets, missiles and drones across the border each day.
The ceasefire offers relief to both sides, giving Israel’s overstretched army a break and allowing Hezbollah leaders to tout the group’s effectiveness in holding their ground despite Israel’s massive advantage in weaponry. But the group is likely to face a reckoning, with many Lebanese accusing it of tying their country’s fate to Gaza’s at the service of key ally Iran, inflicting great damage on a Lebanese economy that was already in grave condition.
No answers for Gaza Until now, Hezbollah has insisted that it would only halt its attacks on Israel when it agreed to stop fighting in Gaza. Some in the region are likely to view a deal between the Lebanon-based group and Israel as a capitulation.
In Gaza, where officials say the war has killed more than 44,000 Palestinians, Israel’s attacks have inflicted a heavy toll on Hamas, including the killing of the group’s top leaders. But Hamas fighters continue to hold scores of Israeli hostages, giving the militant group a bargaining chip if indirect ceasefire negotiations resume.
Hamas is likely to continue to demand a lasting truce and a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in any such deal, while Netanyahu on Tuesday reiterated his pledge to continue the war until Hamas is destroyed and all hostages are freed.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, whose forces were ousted from Gaza by Hamas in 2007 and who hopes to one day rule over the territory again as part of an independent Palestinian state, offered a pointed reminder Tuesday of the intractability of the war, demanding urgent international intervention.
“The only way to halt the dangerous escalation we are witnessing in the region, and maintain regional and international stability, security and peace, is to resolve the question of Palestine,” he said in a speech to the UN read by his ambassador.

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UN Resolution 1701 at the Heart of the Israel-Hezbollah Ceasefire

An empty United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) observation tower on the Israel-Lebanon border, near the southern Lebanese city of Al-Khiam, as seen from northern Israel, 26 November 2024, amid cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel. (EPA)
An empty United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) observation tower on the Israel-Lebanon border, near the southern Lebanese city of Al-Khiam, as seen from northern Israel, 26 November 2024, amid cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel. (EPA)
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UN Resolution 1701 at the Heart of the Israel-Hezbollah Ceasefire

An empty United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) observation tower on the Israel-Lebanon border, near the southern Lebanese city of Al-Khiam, as seen from northern Israel, 26 November 2024, amid cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel. (EPA)
An empty United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) observation tower on the Israel-Lebanon border, near the southern Lebanese city of Al-Khiam, as seen from northern Israel, 26 November 2024, amid cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel. (EPA)

In 2006, after a bruising monthlong war between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah armed group, the United Nations Security Council unanimously voted for a resolution to end the conflict and pave the way for lasting security along the border.

But while relative calm stood for nearly two decades, Resolution 1701’s terms were never fully enforced.

Now, figuring out how to finally enforce it is key to a US-brokered deal that brought a ceasefire Wednesday.

In late September, after nearly a year of low-level clashes, the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah spiraled into all-out war and an Israeli ground invasion. As Israeli jets pound deep inside Lebanon and Hezbollah fires rockets deeper into northern Israel, UN and diplomatic officials again turned to the 2006 resolution in a bid to end the conflict.

Years of deeply divided politics and regionwide geopolitical hostilities have halted substantial progress on its implementation, yet the international community believes Resolution 1701 is still the brightest prospect for long-term stability between Israel and Lebanon.

Almost two decades after the last war between Israel and Hezbollah, the United States led shuttle diplomacy efforts between Lebanon and Israel to agree on a ceasefire proposal that renewed commitment to the resolution, this time with an implementation plan to try to reinvigorate the document.

What is UNSC Resolution 1701? In 2000, Israel withdrew its forces from most of southern Lebanon along a UN-demarcated “Blue Line” that separated the two countries and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights in Syria. UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) peacekeepers increased their presence along the line of withdrawal.

Resolution 1701 was supposed to complete Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon and ensure Hezbollah would move north of the Litani River, keeping the area exclusively under the Lebanese military and UN peacekeepers.

Up to 15,000 UN peacekeepers would help to maintain calm, return displaced Lebanese and secure the area alongside the Lebanese military.

The goal was long-term security, with land borders eventually demarcated to resolve territorial disputes.

The resolution also reaffirmed previous ones that call for the disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon — Hezbollah among them.

“It was made for a certain situation and context,” Elias Hanna, a retired Lebanese army general, told The Associated Press. “But as time goes on, the essence of the resolution begins to hollow.”

Has Resolution 1701 been implemented? For years, Lebanon and Israel blamed each other for countless violations along the tense frontier. Israel said Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force and growing arsenal remained, and accused the group of using a local environmental organization to spy on troops.

Lebanon complained about Israeli military jets and naval ships entering Lebanese territory even when there was no active conflict.

“You had a role of the UNIFIL that slowly eroded like any other peacekeeping with time that has no clear mandate,” said Joseph Bahout, the director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy at the American University of Beirut. “They don’t have permission to inspect the area without coordinating with the Lebanese army.”

UNIFIL for years has urged Israel to withdraw from some territory north of the frontier, but to no avail. In the ongoing war, the peacekeeping mission has accused Israel, as well as Hezbollah, of obstructing and harming its forces and infrastructure.

Hezbollah’s power, meanwhile, has grown, both in its arsenal and as a political influence in the Lebanese state.

The Iran-backed group was essential in keeping Syrian President Bashar Assad in power when armed opposition groups tried to topple him, and it supports Iran-backed groups in Iraq and Yemen. It has an estimated 150,000 rockets and missiles, including precision-guided missiles pointed at Israel, and has introduced drones into its arsenal.

Hanna says Hezbollah “is something never seen before as a non-state actor” with political and military influence.

How do mediators hope to implement 1701 almost two decades later? Israel's security Cabinet approved the ceasefire agreement late Tuesday, according to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office. The ceasefire began at 4 am local time Wednesday.

Efforts led by the US and France for the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah underscored that they still view the resolution as key. For almost a year, Washington has promoted various versions of a deal that would gradually lead to its full implementation.

International mediators hope that by boosting financial support for the Lebanese army — which was not a party in the Israel-Hezbollah war — Lebanon can deploy some 6,000 additional troops south of the Litani River to help enforce the resolution. Under the deal, an international monitoring committee headed by the United States would oversee implementation to ensure that Hezbollah and Israel’s withdrawals take place.

It is not entirely clear how the committee would work or how potential violations would be reported and dealt with.

The circumstances now are far more complicated than in 2006. Some are still skeptical of the resolution's viability given that the political realities and balance of power both regionally and within Lebanon have dramatically changed since then.

“You’re tying 1701 with a hundred things,” Bahout said. “A resolution is the reflection of a balance of power and political context.”

Now with the ceasefire in place, the hope is that Israel and Lebanon can begin negotiations to demarcate their land border and settle disputes over several points along the Blue Line for long-term security after decades of conflict and tension.