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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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Childhood Cancer Patients in Lebanon Must Battle Disease while Under Fire

Mohammad Mousawi, 8, a displaced boy from the southern suburb of Beirut who suffers from leukaemia, steps out the entrance of the Children's Cancer Center of Lebanon, in Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, Nov. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Mohammad Mousawi, 8, a displaced boy from the southern suburb of Beirut who suffers from leukaemia, steps out the entrance of the Children's Cancer Center of Lebanon, in Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, Nov. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
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Childhood Cancer Patients in Lebanon Must Battle Disease while Under Fire

Mohammad Mousawi, 8, a displaced boy from the southern suburb of Beirut who suffers from leukaemia, steps out the entrance of the Children's Cancer Center of Lebanon, in Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, Nov. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Mohammad Mousawi, 8, a displaced boy from the southern suburb of Beirut who suffers from leukaemia, steps out the entrance of the Children's Cancer Center of Lebanon, in Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, Nov. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

Carol Zeghayer gripped her IV as she hurried down the brightly lit hallway of Beirut’s children’s cancer center. The 9-year-old's face brightened when she spotted her playmates from the oncology ward.

Diagnosed with cancer just months before the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel erupted in October 2023, Carol relies on weekly trips to the center in the Lebanese capital for treatment.

But what used to be a 90-minute drive, now takes up to three hours on a mountainous road to skirt the heavy bombardment in south Lebanon, but still not without danger from Israeli airstrikes. The family is just one among many across Lebanon now grappling with the hardships of both illness and war.

“She’s just a child. When they strike, she asks me, ‘Mama, was that far?’” said her mother, Sindus Hamra, The AP reported.

The family lives in Hasbaya, a province in southeastern Lebanon where the rumble of Israeli airstrikes has become part of daily life. Just 15 minutes away from their home, in the front-line town of Khiam, Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters clash amidst relentless bombardments.

On the morning of a recent trip to Beirut for her treatment, the family heard a rocket roar and its deafening impact as they left their home. Israeli airstrikes have also hit vehicles along the Damascus-Beirut highway, which Carol and her mother have to cross.

The bombardment hasn’t let up even as hopes grew in recent days that a ceasefire might soon be agreed.

More than war, Hamra fears that Carol will miss chemotherapy.

“Her situation is very tricky — her cancer can spread to her head,” Hamra said, her eyes filling with tears. Her daughter, diagnosed first with cancer of the lymph nodes and later leukemia, has completed a third of her treatment, with many months still ahead.

While Carol's family remains in their home, many in Lebanon have been displaced by an intensified Israeli bombardment that began in late September. Tens of thousands fled their homes in southern and eastern Lebanon, as well as Beirut’s southern suburbs — among them were families with children battling cancer.

The Children’s Cancer Center of Lebanon quickly identified each patient’s location to ensure treatments remained uninterrupted, sometimes facilitating them at hospitals closer to the families' new locations, said Zeina El Chami, the center’s fundraising and events executive.

During the first days of the escalation, the center admitted some patients for emergency care and kept them there as it was unsafe to send them home, said Dolly Noun, a pediatric hematologist and oncologist.

“They had no place to go,” she added. "We’ve had patients getting admitted for panic attacks. It has not been easy.”

The war has not only deepened the struggles of young patients.

“Many physicians have had to relocate,” Noun said. “I know physicians, who work here, who haven’t seen their parents in like six weeks because the roads are very dangerous.”

Since 2019, Lebanon has been battered by cascading crises — economic collapse, the devastating Beirut port explosion in 2020, and now a relentless war — leaving institutions like the cancer center struggling to secure the funds needed to save lives.

“Cancer waits for no one,” Chami said. The crises have affected the center’s ability to hold fundraising events in recent years, leaving it in urgent need of donations, she added.

The facility is currently treating more than 400 patients aged from few days to 18 years old, Chami said. It treats around 60% of children with cancer in Lebanon.

For Carol, the war is sometimes a topic of conversation with her friends at the cancer center. Her mother hears her recount hearing the booms and how the house shook.

For others, the moments with their friends in the center's playroom provide a brief escape from the grim reality outside.

Eight-year-old Mohammad Mousawi darts around the playroom, giggling as he hides objects and books for his playmate to find. Too absorbed by the game, he barely answers questions, before the nurse calls him for his weekly chemotherapy treatment.

His family lived in Ghobeiry, a neighborhood in Beirut’s southern suburbs. Their house was marked for destruction in an Israeli evacuation warning weeks ago, his mother said.

“But till now, they haven’t struck it,” said his mother, Suzan Mousawi. “They have hit (buildings) around it — two behind it and two in front of it.”

The family has relocated three times. They first moved to the mountains, but the bitter cold weakened Mohammad’s already fragile immune system.

Now they’ve settled in Ain el-Rummaneh, not far from their home in the southern Beirut suburbs known as Dahiyeh, which has come under significant bombardment. As the Israeli military widened the radius of its bombardment, some buildings hit were less than 500 meters (yards) from their current home.

The Mousawis have lived their entire lives in Dahiyeh, Suzan Mousawi said, until the war uprooted them. Her parents’ home was bombed. “All our memories are gone,” she said.

Mohammad has 15 weeks of treatment left, and his family is praying it will be successful. But the war has stolen some of their dreams.

“When Mohammad fell ill, we bought a house,” she said. “It wasn’t big, but it was something. I bought him an electric scooter and set up a pool, telling myself we’d take him there once he finishes treatment.”

She fears the house, bought with every penny she had saved, could be lost at any moment.

For some families, this kind of conflict is not new. Asinat Al Lahham, a 9-year-old patient of the cancer center, is a refugee whose family fled Syria.

“We escaped one war to another,” Asinat’s mother, Fatima, added.

As her father, Aouni, drove home from her chemotherapy treatment weeks ago, an airstrike happened. He cranked up the music in the car, trying to drown out the deafening sound of the attack.

Asinat sat in the back seat, clutching her favorite toy. “I wanted to distract her, to make her hear less of it,” he said.

In the medical ward on a recent day, Asinat sat in a chair hooked to an IV drip, negotiating with her doctor. “Just two or three small pinches,” she pleaded, asking for flavoring for her instant noodles that she is not supposed to have.

“I don’t feel safe ... nowhere is safe ... not Lebanon, not Syria, not Palestine,” Asinat said. “The sonic booms are scary, but the noodles make it better,” she added with a mischievous grin.

The family has no choice but to stay in Lebanon. Returning to Syria, where their home is gone, would mean giving up Asinat’s treatment.

“We can’t leave here,” her mother said. “This war, her illness ... it’s like there’s no escape.”