But?
Hezbollah is vastly different than Hamas in Gaza, who STILL , after ALL the levling bombong Israel has done?
Holds Israeli hostages that maybe alive or dead….
President Biden hails the Lebanese/Hezbollah agreement with Israel , that Trump is already trying to steal credit for…..
The fragile cease-fire between Israel and the militant group Hezbollah appeared to be holding into its first, tense night on Wednesday, as nervous Lebanese traveled back to devastated homes and the United States sought to seize the moment to bolster regional stability.
President Biden said that the United States would “make another push” to achieve a cease-fire in Gaza, where Israel is fighting a Hezbollah ally, Hamas. And while many Gazans expressed despair at the prospects for a truce there soon, the White House sought to shore up relations in the region that had frayed over 13 months of conflict.
Brett McGurk, the president’s Middle East coordinator, met with the Saudi crown prince, the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh said on Wednesday, adding that the two had discussed Lebanon and Gaza. A day earlier, Mr. Biden said the United States was still working to normalize Saudi-Israeli relations, which the crown prince has said depend on the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Against that backdrop, the Lebanese Army took the first tentative steps toward reasserting control in territory devastated by Israeli airstrikes in recent months and dominated by Hezbollah for years before that. Some Hezbollah supporters celebrated the cease-fire, claiming it was a victory despite the group’s battered state.
Under the cease-fire agreement, which was mediated by the United States and France, Israel will withdraw its forces from Lebanon over the next 60 days; Hezbollah will move its fighters north of the Litani River, which runs roughly parallel to the Israel-Lebanon border; and the Lebanese Army will send more troops to the country’s south. Read the agreement >
Lebanese military convoys could be seen traveling south on Wednesday, as were thousands of Lebanese people, who jammed roads to get back to towns and villages devastated by the war, the deadliest between Israel and Hezbollah in decades.
Not all of southern Lebanon was accessible: Israel’s military warned civilians against immediately returning to some areas and declared a curfew over much of the region until Thursday morning.
And many questions remained about the durability of the truce, which was underscored when Israel’s military shelled two villages in southern Lebanon, Khiam and Kfar Kila. Asked about the shelling, the military said in a statement that its soldiers had opened fire after identifying a vehicle in “a zone prohibited for movement” in Lebanon, forcing it to turn around. It was not immediately clear where that took place.
Here is what else to know:
-
Biden’s Gaza push: President Biden said the agreement between Israel and Hezbollah “brings us closer to realizing a future I’ve been pushing for my entire presidency where the Middle East is at peace, prosperous, and integrated across borders.” But a truce between Israel and Hamas has proved much harder to reach, because the hostages held by Hamas give it more leverage in negotiations, and because any deal with the group could threaten Mr. Netanyahu’s governing coalition. That leaves Gazans heading into a second winter of war with little hope of an end to Israel’s military campaign there.
-
Israel’s aims: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu endorsed the cease-fire deal with Hezbollah on Tuesday night and argued that the truce would allow Israel to rebuild its weapons stockpiles while it works to isolate Hamas. He also said it would allow Israel to focus on the threat posed by its regional adversary, Iran, which backs both Hezbollah and Hamas.
-
Displaced Israelis: The cease-fire agreement drew mixed emotions from some of the tens of thousands of displaced residents of northern Israel who have been moving between hotels, rentals and friends’ and relatives’ homes for more than a year. Some hailed the truce as a chance to return home, while others worried that Hezbollah would be able to rearm and again threaten their communities.
-
Netanyahu’s arrest warrant: France’s foreign ministry strongly suggested on Wednesday that Mr. Netanyahu would not immediately be arrested if he came to French territory, despite an International Criminal Court arrest warrant accusing him of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Israel’s war in Gaza.
Lebanese return to bombed South Lebanon….
Thousands of civilians began the journey back to their war-ravaged, mostly abandoned communities around Beirut and in southern Lebanon on Wednesday, as a U.S.-backed cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah took tenuous hold after more than 13 months of bloodshed.
Vehicles stuffed with whatever items people took as they fled Israeli bombing crawled bumper to bumper on roads heading south from Beirut, the capital. For the people in them, elation, relief — and, for Hezbollah supporters, defiance — vied with grim knowledge: They might not have homes to return to, and the 60-day truce might not hold or bring the hoped-for end of the deadliest, most destructive war their nation has suffered in decades.
But it was not clear when the people of southern Lebanon, bordering Israel, could go back, as the Israeli military said it would not yet permit residents in an area that had been a Hezbollah stronghold, used to launch most of its attacks on Israel. About one-quarter of Lebanon’s more than five million people have been forced from their homes by the war.
People did begin to return on Wednesday to Hezbollah-controlled areas in and near Beirut that had been pummeled by Israeli air power, often to find large swaths reduced to rubble, tangled steel and broken glass.
…
Nov 27, 2024 – ISW Press
The Israel-Lebanese Hezbollah ceasefire has held as it went into effect on November 26.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.