When Israel and Hezbollah signed a temporary truce in November, the deal was hailed as the first step toward ending Lebanon’s deadliest war in decades.
Both Hezbollah and Israel agreed to withdraw their forces from South Lebanon within 60 days. The Lebanese army and UN peacekeeping forces would secure the area. And if there was a truce, negotiators hoped the agreement would become permanent, restoring a measure of calm to the turbulent region.
But as the 60-day ceasefire expired on Sunday, a very different scenario took shape.
Israeli forces appeared to remain in parts of southern Lebanon, allaying fears among the Lebanese sustained Israeli occupation and renewed hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah. Avoiding those perspectives is a critical test for Lebanon’s new president Josip Aoun and premier-designing Nawaf Salamas they seek to regain political control from Hezbollah, the country’s dominant political and military force.
Any prolonged Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon could breathe new life into Hezbollah, a group founded on the liberation of Lebanon from Israeli occupation and which has presented itself as the only force capable of protecting Lebanon’s borders, experts say.
It also threatens to destroy the current political momentum in Lebanon, where for the first time in decades there is serious pressure to consolidate all military power within the country, and from them Hezbollah’s justification for its huge arsenal is justified.
The focus in Lebanon now is toward “disarming Hezbollah and moving away from an era where Hezbollah was seen as having the right to acquire weapons,” said Mohanad Hage Ali, deputy director of research at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut. Any long-term Israeli occupation “would put pauses on that momentum, which is happening organically,” he added.
Israeli officials have cited concerns that Hezbollah remains active in southern Lebanon and suspicions The ability of the Lebanese army to arrive group. Hezbollah officials did not respond to the accusations, but said they were “committed” to supporting the terms of the ceasefire.
Lebanese army officials said on Saturday that they were ready to complete their deployment in the south, but had delayed “as a result of the delay in the withdrawal by the Israeli enemy”, according to a Lebanese army statement.
The 60-day ceasefire came into effect more than a year after Hezbollah began firing rockets at Israeli positions in solidarity with its ally Hamas, the Palestinian militant group in Gaza that led the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel. Israel took revenge Assassination of Hezbollah leadershipleveling towns and villages along the border and invading southern Lebanon.
Ahead of Sunday’s deadline, thousands of Lebanese displaced by the war from their homes along the southern border were preparing to return home. On Saturday, the main highway leading from the capital, Beirut, to South Lebanon was packed with cars. Few people seemed repulsed by the news of Israeli forces remaining in parts of the South or the Israeli military’s automated phone calls on Saturday warning them not to return home.
“You are prohibited from returning home until further notice,” the automated voice said. “Anyone who drives south is putting their lives at risk.”
Israeli forces appeared to be continuing efforts that persisted during the 60-day truce to bulldoze and block roads between some villages in southern Lebanon, local media reported. Israel currently occupies roughly 70 percent of the territory it captured after invading Lebanon last fall, According to the United Nations peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon.
The Lebanese army also warned of the dangers of unexploded ordnance in some villages and towns. However, few Lebanese were deterred from returning home.
“The people of the country will force themselves on them,” said Abed Al Karim Hasan, a banana farmer in Maaliye, a village in southern Lebanon, whose home was destroyed during the war. “If I had a house there, I’d go there first thing tomorrow.”
Hezbollah has not said how it plans to respond to Israel’s continued occupation of Lebanese soil. On Friday, Hezbollah officials warned in a statement that if Israeli forces remained in Lebanon after Sunday, it would constitute “an attack on Lebanese sovereignty and the beginning of a new chapter of occupation.”
Some Hezbollah lawmakers have vowed retaliation. But other officials from Hezbollah – which has been battered militarily and politically in recent months – have instead shifted responsibility for responding to Israel to the Lebanese government. The group’s statement on Friday said it was up to the state to “reclaim the country and free it from the grip of occupation.”
That shifting of responsibility is a tried-and-tested tactic for Hezbollah, which just months ago called on the state to provide for thousands of Lebanese women displaced by the war it has plunged the country into. Yet the political posturing from a group whose founding principle resists Israeli occupation reflects Hezbollah’s currently weakened state.
After 14 months of fighting, the Shiite Muslim group’s military ranks are overcrowded and its loyal support base is weary after months of displacement and destruction. Its patron Iran has also weakened Israel, casting doubt on Iran’s ability to provide millions of dollars to rebuild the homes of Hezbollah supporters in Lebanon, as it did after Hezbollah’s month-long war with Israel in 2006.
And in neighboring Syria, rebels toppled Iran’s ally, dictator Bashar al-Assad, cutting off Hezbollah’s land bridge to receive weapons and money from Iran.
These strikes unleashed Hezbollah’s once iron grip on political power in Lebanon, shifting the country’s political sands for the first time in decades. Earlier this month, Lebanese lawmakers elected a new president, Mr. Aoun, after years of political backbiting that many analysts attributed to Hezbollah. Days later, lawmakers appointed Mr. Salam, a respected diplomat long opposed by Hezbollah, as prime minister.
In a country where no major political decision has been made in years without Hezbollah’s blessing, the events highlighted how much ground the group has lost.
But Middle East experts cautioned against writing off Hezbollah’s political weight just yet. And if Israel continues to occupy Lebanon, it could revive the group’s largely Shiite Muslim support base as it seeks a protector and protector against Israeli forces.
“I believe that neither side has an interest in continuing the war,” said Sami Nader, director of the Institute of Political Science at Saint Joseph University in Beirut. “But as long as Israel occupies Lebanon, it revives the Hezbollah narrative.”
Sara Chaito contributed reporting.
