The Israel-Hezbollah Cease-Fire: What to Know

A cease-fire meant to end the deadliest war in decades between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah officially took effect early Wednesday, less than a day after President Biden announced the deal and Israel approved its terms.

Thousands of Lebanese began to return to their homes in the first hours of the cease-fire. The fighting has killed thousands in Lebanon and around 100 Israeli civilians and soldiers. The conflict has also displaced about one million people in Lebanon, in addition to doing vast physical damage there, and about 60,000 people in Israel.

Lebanon’s government agreed on Wednesday morning to the deal. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu endorsed it on Tuesday night and argued that a truce would allow Israel to rebuild its weapon stockpiles while it works to isolate Hamas, the Hezbollah ally that Israel is fighting in Gaza.

A 60-day truce

• The agreement, mediated by American and French diplomats, calls for Israel and Hezbollah to observe a 60-day truce.

• During that period, Israel would withdraw its forces gradually from southern Lebanon.

• Hezbollah forces would move north away from the Israeli border and the Lebanese military will send more troops to Lebanon’s south.

• The withdrawals would effectively create a buffer zone between Israel and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, along the Israeli border.

• If the truce holds though the 60-day period, negotiators hope the agreement will become permanent.

How will it be enforced?

Under the terms of the deal, a U.N. peacekeeping force, along with the Lebanese Army, will keep the peace in the border zone, as envisioned in a 2006 United Nations Security Council resolution that ended the previous Israel-Hezbollah war but that was never fully carried out.

The cease-fire will be overseen by several countries, including the United States and France, as well as by the United Nations.

Mr. Netanyahu said Israel retained the ability to take further military action if the Lebanese Army and U.N. force failed to keep Hezbollah out of the border zone.

What are the obstacles to a permanent deal?

The failure of the 2006 agreement, known as Resolution 1701, is hanging over the new one. Like the current cease-fire, 1701 relied on the Lebanese Army, which has not been in a position to control Hezbollah, and on U.N. peacekeepers, who have not been empowered to confront Hezbollah militarily.

It remains to be seen whether those issues will be adequately addressed under the new deal.

Israel and Hezbollah, which is also a political party with significant power, have long accused each other of violating the terms of Resolution 1701, which called for Hezbollah to remain north of the Litani River that runs roughly parallel to the border with Israel. Hezbollah has said that it stayed south of the river because Israel did not keep its commitment to withdraw completely from Lebanon.

Hezbollah cited Israel’s presence in an agricultural region claimed by Lebanon and known as the Shebaa Farms, which Israel contends is part of the Golan Heights captured from Syria in a 1967 war.

The cease-fire is an agreement between Israel, Lebanon and the mediating countries, including the United States — but not Hezbollah, which the U.S. has designated a terrorist group. A top Lebanese lawmaker has been acting as a liaison with Hezbollah, but the group is not an official signatory.

Why did the sides agree to stop fighting?

Both Israel and Hezbollah are weary of war and eager to find a satisfactory end to the fighting. Israel has killed many of Hezbollah’s leaders and fighters, as well as destroyed much of its arsenal of rockets. Israeli officials and analysts have questioned the country’s capacity to keep waging war in Lebanon while it is also fighting in Gaza.

Iran, which is Hezbollah’s primary ally and backer, urged the group to accept a cease-fire earlier this month.

Hezbollah’s new leader, Naim Qassem, suggested in a video last week that the group would agree to a cease-fire if Israel ended its attacks on Lebanon and Lebanon retained its sovereignty.

How did we get here?

The roots of the conflict go back generations. Israel invaded Lebanon in 1978 and again in 1982 to fight the Palestine Liberation Organization, which had launched attacks from Lebanon.

The P.L.O. withdrew from Lebanon in 1982, but Hezbollah was created the same year, with Iranian sponsorship, specifically to fight Israel. Israel’s forces occupied southern Lebanon from 1982 to 2000, and invaded again in 2006 in response to cross-border attacks, to push Hezbollah away.

The most recent round of fighting began in the aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks led by Hamas, which killed an estimated 1,200 people in Israel and set off a devastating war in the Gaza Strip.

The next day, Hezbollah’s fighters began firing missiles and rockets at northern Israel from its base in Lebanon in solidarity with Hamas. Israel and Hezbollah have traded fire across the border ever since, killing combatants and civilians, destroying homes and setting farmland on fire.

Both sides appeared to moderate their exchanges to avoid a broader war. But that approach broke down in July, after a rocket fired from Lebanon killed 12 children in an Israeli-controlled town. Israel retaliated with an airstrike that killed a senior Hezbollah commander in the southern suburbs of Beirut.

In mid-September, Israel mounted surprise attacks by detonating booby-trapped pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah members. Days later, it unleashed one of the most intense air raids in modern warfare, bombing parts of Lebanon where Hezbollah holds sway and killing the group’s longtime leader, Hassan Nasrallah.

Israel later launched its ground incursion into Lebanon and intensified its airstrikes, including in and near the capital, Beirut. Hezbollah continued to fire rockets and other projectiles into Israel.

Aryn Baker and Aaron Boxerman contributed reporting.