The weapons fell silent. At four in the morning local time (three in the morning French time) a ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel came into effect, marking the culmination of long weeks of negotiations to reach an agreement after more than a year of conflict. . between Hezbollah and Israel which has become an open war since September and has left several thousand dead in Lebanon. However, the contours of this ceasefire remain unclear at certain points.
• A “long-term” ceasefire
As Emmanuel Macron indicated in a message on Tuesday, the ceasefire agreement concluded follows resolution 1701 adopted in 2006 by the UN Security Council to end the previous conflict between Hezbollah and Israel. This text called for a “complete cessation of hostilities,” as well as an “immediate cessation” of Hezbollah’s “attacks” and Israel’s “military offensives.”
“It is important that this ceasefire be respected, that it be respected in the long term, to restore the security of the Lebanese and the security of the Israelis,” stressed the President of the Republic, without giving further details.
For his part, Joe Biden stated that the ceasefire is supposed to be “permanent” while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the duration of the ceasefire will depend “on what happens in Lebanon.”
• A gradual withdrawal of troops over 60 days.
With this agreement, the only certainty on the calendar concerns the next two months, provided, of course, that both sides respect the ceasefire.
According to Joe Biden, “in the next 60 days, the Lebanese army and security forces will deploy and take control of their own territory.”
During the same period, “Israel will gradually withdraw its remaining troops” in Lebanon to allow hundreds of thousands of displaced people to return to their homes.
According to an American source cited by the BBC, the Lebanese army should deploy about 5,000 men in southern Lebanon, while the number of peacekeepers from UNIFIL, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, should be increased.
Hezbollah, for its part, undertakes to withdraw its fighters and all its weapons from the area between the “blue line”, the border between Israel and Lebanon drawn by the UN in 2000, and the Litani River, located about thirty kilometers away. further north.
• Israel intends to maintain “complete freedom of action”
Will Israel and Hezbollah really go through the monitoring committee created to assert their rights in case of adverse aggression? It is permissible to be skeptical, especially after Benjamin Netanyahu’s statements. On Tuesday, the Israeli Prime Minister insisted that the Jewish state retained “complete freedom of action” in Lebanon.
And to list the cases in which the Jewish state reserved the right to retaliate: “If Hezbollah violates the agreement and tries to arm itself, we will attack. If it tries to rebuild terrorist infrastructure near the border, we will attack. If it launches a rocket, if dig a tunnel, if you bring a truck with rockets, we will attack,” he said.
Hezbollah, which did not participate directly in the truce negotiations and preferred to ask Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri to negotiate on its behalf, has not yet commented on the ceasefire agreement.
• Paris and Washington, first guarantors of the agreement
Involved on the front line in concluding a ceasefire, the Americans and French must also play an important role in ensuring compliance with this agreement. Emmanuel Macron thus assured that Paris “will spare no effort to support its implementation” and that it will do so “with the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, within which (France plays) a central role.”
Specifically, France and the United States will join the tripartite mechanism that has existed since the 2006 war and includes UNIFIL, Lebanon and Israel. This new monitoring committee, under American presidency, aims to maintain a link between the different parties and address any serious violations that may be observed to avoid the slightest escalation.
Joe Biden, however, made it clear: the United States has no plans to deploy American troops to southern Lebanon. “It is consistent with my commitment to the American people not to send troops to fight in this conflict,” he explained. According to the American source consulted by the BBC, the United States will provide military support to the Lebanese armed forces, “since.” “This will normally be done (…) in collaboration with the French army,” the official said.
Source: BFM TV
