The Decibel - The Israel-Lebanon ceasefire, explained

Episode Date: November 29, 2024

This week, Israel and Hezbollah – the Iran-backed armed group in Lebanon – reached a ceasefire deal. A day later, both accused the other of violating the peace.But the fragile agreement, brokered by the U.S. and France, appears to be holding for now. And while Israel and Hezbollah have agreed to halt their fighting, the war Israel is fighting in Gaza with Hamas continues.Eric Reguly, the Globe’s European Bureau Chief, has reported from Lebanon during the war. He joins the show to explain what led to this deal, what could help it succeed, and if this could create momentum for a ceasefire in Gaza.Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [e-mail]

This week, Israel and Hezbollah reached a ceasefire deal, and then soon after, accused each other of breaching that peace. The ceasefire, though fragile, appears to still be holding. Israel and Hezbollah, the Iran-backed armed group in Lebanon, agreed to the deal after over a year of fighting. Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel after October 7th last year, in support of Hamas's attacks on Israel. The two exchanged fire for months, and then the conflict escalated when Israel invaded Lebanon this fall. And while the fighting may have seized between Israel and Hezbollah,

the war in Gaza continues. Today, Eric Reguli, the Globe's European Bureau Chief, is on the show. He's reported from Lebanon during the war. Eric will explain what led to this deal, what could help it succeed, and if this could create momentum for a ceasefire in Gaza? I'm Mainika Raman-Wilms, and this is The Decibel from The Globe and Mail. Eric, thank you so much for being here. A pleasure. So we're about two days into the ceasefire, but both sides have already reported violations. We are going to get into that, of course. But Eric, can you just quickly lay out for us, what are the key points? About two days into the ceasefire, but both sides have already reported violations.

We are going to get into that, of course. But Eric, can you just quickly lay out for us what are the key points of this ceasefire deal? Both sides, the Israelis and Hezbollah, have to withdraw from the area south of the Latani River in southern Lebanon. The Latani River runs about 30 kilometers north of the Israeli border. That's where most of the fighting, the ground fighting and the aerial attacks have been since late September. So they have 60 days to withdraw. Now, this is just a ceasefire. This is not a long-term peace plan. There's a big difference. I don't think a long-term peace plan, there's a big difference. I don't think a long-term peace plan will come until Donald Trump is in the White House in January. But that's the basis of it. It's more or less a clone of UN Resolution 1701 from 2006, when Israel and Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran, fought a 34-day war. The plan was for the Lebanese army and the United Nations to occupy southern Lebanon

and disarm Hezbollah and the Israelis withdraw. It did not work. Hezbollah basically took over the area and it just fell apart and they formed a state within a state. So this new plan is a variation on that one. It's essentially a clone and there's no guarantee it'll work. But I I'm sort of optimistic it will. OK. And just so I understand it then. So Israel and Lebanon both are supposed to pull back over the next 60 days. And then there's a role for the Lebanese army and the U and the UN actually to help maintain peace there. What is their role? Well, the UN's been there since 2006. They're

called UNIFIL, U-N-I-F-I-L. Several thousands of troops have been there. And they are simply to monitor ceasefire violations, keep the peace, and make sure the militias are disarmed. It did not work since 2006. Hezbollah was too strong, and UNIFIL, which is not a fighting force, they're a peacekeeping force, was supposed to be working with the Lebanese army. And the Lebanese army was and is very weak, had virtually no weapons, very little manpower. And that power vacuum was filled fully by Hezbollah, which made southern Lebanon its stronghold, along with South Beirut. Yeah, it's important to clarify, yeah, the Lebanese army, this is kind of the state-run army, but Hezbollah actually ends up having more control, it seems like, in these situations than the actual army. Yeah, exactly. I mean, Israel's not at war with Lebanon, the state, or the Lebanese army. It's at war with Hezbollah, which is the Iran-backed militia, mostly of southern Lebanon. Okay. And so that kind of gives us a sense of the ceasefire deal. And Eric, I should say,

we're talking Thursday morning, Toronto time. And this morning, we are hearing that there have been violations of this deal. What do we know about what's happened? Day one, the first full day of the ceasefire, it looked like it was holding to the point that thousands of displaced Lebanese filled the highways and the roads were heading back to their homes in southern Lebanon. Today, this morning, my time, European time, I'm in Rome. There are reports of violations with each side blaming the other. Now, I actually did a little reporting on this. I phoned my fixer, my assistant in Lebanon. I was there last month, who's very well connected, neutral. And he said,

the problem was that Israel did not want all these displaced people moving back to the southernmost portion of Lebanon, which is largely destroyed and not ready for reoccupation by the families that own the homes. It's still occupied by Israel. And Israel considered that movement back to the extreme south of Lebanon a violation of the ceasefire terms. And shots were fired. I don't know if Hezbollah itself fired shots or members of the civilian Shia community or Israel did, who did it first. But there's no doubt that Israel fired some tank shots into villages. Okay. How significant are these violations? I guess I wonder, is the entire ceasefire threatened here? Yeah. I mean, this is an experiment. I mean, look, the 2006 ceasefire ultimately did not work.

And there's no guarantee this one will either, because neither side trusts each other. Hezbollah hates Israel. Israel hates Hezbollah. They're both very good fighters. Both are well-armed. Hezbollah a bit less so now since it's been pounded for two months by the Israelis. But at the same time, the reason I'm optimistic is I think both sides are really weary of this war in Lebanon, and they're ready to make a deal. I think there's going to be violations for the next 60 days. My sense is, though, and I could be entirely wrong, my sense is, though, these violations will not be enough to derail this peace agreement. Well, let's talk about this peace agreement, then, Eric, and kind of understand how it was created. Do we know how this ceasefire agreement actually came together?

Well, what we're almost certain of is it came together very quickly. Why is that? Because even though Hezbollah and Israel have been fighting since October 7th, 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel and Hezbollah the day later, in sympathy, started lobbing missiles into Israel. The war did not really intensify between Hezbollah and Israel until late September. And in early October, October 1st to be exact, Israel actually invaded Lebanon for the first time since 2006. And that was all a war. So that's when we assume that this peace plan was nurtured, because it could have spiraled out of control. There was a big fear that there'd be a major second war starting in the Middle East, the first one being Gaza, of course. And I think we're also hearing that the U.S. actually played a fairly significant role in having this come together. What do we know about how other countries, I guess, influence this deal?

Well, it was mostly the United States. The White House statements credit the White House and French President Emmanuel Macron. Lebanon has been referred to as a French colony. It was not technically a colony, but in effect it was. It was an administration area of France. You know, Lebanese speak English, French, and Arabic, you know, usually fluently, all three. So the French still have a big influence in that part of the world. There was a time when Beirut, up until the civil war in Lebanon in 1975, was known as the Paris of the Middle East. The French still have a big influence in Lebanon. So the United States and France teamed up together to force this ceasefire. And the timing was right, because I think US President Joe Biden had to leave the White House with a diplomatic victory in the Middle East. For the last year, he didn't have one. I mean, he tried to get Israel and Hamas to stop killing each other in Gaza and then utterly

failed. This was a more easy solution for him to show a diplomatic victory. And it's a big victory, if it holds, if it holds. The other reason I think that the ceasefire was able to be negotiated in the last few days was that Israel had pretty much done what it wanted to do in Lebanon. In other words, it inflicted heavy, seriously heavy wounds on Hezbollah. Now, Hezbollah is still a powerful fighting force, but not nearly as powerful as it was. You remember the Pager explosions, the assassinations, and as Rala, the Hezbollah leader was assassinated by a missile attack in South Beirut. Probably a dozen or two dozen of his senior commanders were killed. So in that way, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could say, look, we don't have to take this any farther. Now, Hezbollah, of course, is saying the

opposite. Well, let me ask you then about that, because it sounds like, OK, Israel maybe achieved, as you said, what it wanted to achieve. Why would Hezbollah agree to this? What do they have big risks of the ceasefire. So, you know, this was a ground evasion. Both sides took considerable losses. Something between 50 and 100 Israeli soldiers died in South Lebanon. I don't know that for sure. But I think they were so wounded by the assassinations, by the Pager attacks, by the relentless bombing, that they needed a pause. And it was relentless bombing for almost two months in southern Lebanon and south Beirut, and more recently, central Beirut. But the key thing is this. Hezbollah, when Nasrallah was alive, who was their leader for 30 years, he said, look, Hezbollah will stop fighting as long as there's a ceasefire in Gaza. That was the stipulation. And this stipulation was canceled in this latest ceasefire. So Hezbollah said, we will agree to a ceasefire, officially Lebanon, but in effect, Hezbollah said, we will no longer demand a ceasefire in Gaza for the ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel in southern Lebanon. And why do we think, like, why would Hezbollah kind of make that concession?

Because that was essentially the reason that they were saying they were entering this conflict with Israel in the first place, why they started last year. Because I think Hezbollah was desperate for a deal. You know, you've got to remember that since 2006, during the 34-day war, Hezbollah essentially forced Israel out of Lebanon. But the weapons, the communication systems, the guided missiles, the guided bombs are much more sophisticated now than they were 18 years ago. At the same time, Hezbollah, while it rearmed, did not rearm itself with very sophisticated weapons. They did not have anti-missile and anti-aircraft capability.

They were superb ground fighters, but they didn't have anywhere near the sophisticated weapons the Israelis have developed since the 2006 war. We'll be right back. How big of an impact has this war had on Lebanon? Oh, huge. So I was there for two weeks last month. And as soon as I landed at Beirut Airport, which is in South Beirut, that's about seven kilometers to the center where my hotel was. I was shocked because both sides of the main road were lined with cars, double and triple parked. And I thought, what was going on?

They were IDPs, internally displaced people, sleeping in their cars, fleeing the bombing in southern Lebanon. And it just multiplied every day. So by the time I left, there were somewhere between a million and 1.2 million internally displaced people. And they were overwhelming the cities. They were living in beaches, in tents. They were living in parks. They were living in their cars. They were living in hotels commandeered by the Lebanese government. Almost all the schools in Lebanon were closed. The kids could not go to school. They were losing their academic year. And central Beirut, I mean, a city I know well and love, felt like being in an open air refugee camp. And it caused a lot of tension with the locals.

You got to realize that the Lebanese government is essentially bankrupt. You know, it's been in financial crisis for years and years and years. It has no money. So it was really up to the aid groups to feed them, to give them water. By the time I left, I think the society was close to collapse. Huge number of internally displaced people, destroyed infrastructure. A lot of people have been killed, right? I think it's close to 4,000 people have also been killed in Lebanon.

Tens of thousands wounded. I covered one attack that was only a kilometer from my hotel where about a dozen people were killed. It was a clinic, a medical clinic. I mean, the destruction of these missiles is incredible, absolutely incredible. My fixer almost got killed two days ago in Beirut. He was in the center of the city. I don't know what he was doing there. And he said he just got flattened by a missile attack. This is just before the ceasefire took place. And he said sheets of glass fell off the building and crashed into his car from the building that was destroyed. And I talked to him a few hours later, and he was numb. He wasn't making sense.

He was in shock still and partly deaf. Yeah. Wow. So now that there is the ceasefire in place, I guess when we talk about the impact on civilians here, Eric, what does it mean for these people, I guess, both on the Lebanese and the Israeli sides of the border here? Yeah, don't forget that 60,000 to 70,000 Israelis in North Israel are also displaced. They've had to leave their homes.

And today and yesterday, they were really upset that the ceasefire is in place without Hezbollah being fully destroyed. And some of them wanted a buffer zone that would go north of the Israeli border into southern Lebanon. So, yeah, it's hurt both sides of the border. Obviously, Lebanon more. There's been dozens of villages that have been flat in South Lebanon. So all these Lebanese going back to their homes in South and Central Lebanon, also the Bekaa Valley, which runs north-south, just west of the Syrian border. A lot of these

towns are uninhabitable now. There's no homes to go back to, which raises the question, who's going to rebuild? When is it going to happen? Who's going to pay for it? I mean, the Lebanese government has zero money to rebuild, nothing, not a cent. So it's going to be donations. The obvious donor is going to be Iran, but will the Lebanese government itself take money from Iran to rebuild? Doesn't seem seem likely, which means will they give money to Hezbollah to rebuild villages? How much of that rebuilding money would be diverted or siphoned off by Hezbollah to rebuild their weapons, in effect? So I don't see politically when Iran is trying to make a peace deal with the incoming U.S. administration, with Donald Trump, to prevent the attacks and counterattacks between Iran and Israel, which have been happening for months, I don't think Iran wants to be seen to be supporting a nominally independent country like Lebanon. The optics are not good, which raises the question, where is Lebanon going to get the money to rebuild?

I don't see an easy solution to this. There's going to be a lot of people living in tents for a long time. So what needs to happen then, Eric, for this ceasefire to be a success, for this to actually work then? The primary factor for this to make it work, and this is not just me, this is strategists, politicians, analysts I talked to in the last couple of days in Lebanon, right on the ground, who've been covering this conflict since the 70s, have said that the major reason that the 1701, UN Resolution 1701 failed after 2006, is that the Lebanese army was completely ineffective in southern Lebanon, allowing that power vacuum to be filled by Hezbollah. What needs to happen this time, they told me, is that the Lebanese army has to be bulked up. It needs new weapons, new soldiers.

It has to send 10,000 more soldiers into south Lebanon, which is hell in a very small place, to be a proper sovereign army that is taken seriously, that can keep the peace, that can disarm Hezbollah, that can gain the trust of the local population. You know, many of the Shia in the south consider Hezbollah their protector against Israel. There's a lot of support for Hezbollah now among the Shia community in the south. That trust has to be transferred now to the Lebanese army. That's impossible to happen if they're going in there with, you know, a dozen armored personnel carriers and a few thousand men, this has to be a proper military presence down there that has to convince the Shia that, look, trust us, we're going to take over that role.

We are going to be your protectors. And the only way that the Lebanese army is going to be able to do that is to bulk up considerably. United States and France have said they will build capacity for the Lebanese army. We'll see if that actually happens. Eric, when we talk about the ceasefire deal, what does it mean for the conflicts in the wider region? Is it going to have an impact more broadly? That's probably the key question right now is whether the ceasefire, if it holds, big if, will add momentum for a ceasefire in Gaza, which is the big goal, frankly. So Biden and Antony Blinken, his secretary of state, have both hinted strongly that this could pave the way for a peace deal in Gaza.

I'm not so sure about that. The impression is that, look, if the White House and France can stop a war in Lebanon, we should be able to do the same thing. What it revealed to them is that Israel's open to deals. It was open to a deal between Hezbollah slash Lebanon and Israel. Therefore, it's conceivably open to a deal in Gaza. I just, I don't think Israel's ready for a deal in Gaza yet. I just don't see it. I think that where Israel can say that we've inflicted huge damage on Hezbollah to the point we've not eliminated, but largely eliminated its ability to fight well, they can't say the same of Hamas. Hamas is still killing Israeli soldiers in Gaza. I think that's fanciful to say that a peace agreement in Lebanon is going to lead quickly to a peace agreement in Gaza. I don't see it. I don't see it. Eric, thank you for taking the time to be here. Thank you very much. That's it for today. I'm Mainika Raman-Wellms. Our producers are Madeline White,

Michal Stein, and Allie Graham. David Crosby edits the show. Adrian Chung is our senior producer, and Matt Frainer is our managing editor. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll talk to you soon.