Relief in Lebanon as ceasefire takes hold after violent night

After a hellish night, people in Lebanon have woken up to the possibility of peace for the first time in more than a year. Israel’s war has killed over 3,800 people, displaced one million, and left much of the country in ruins.

For many in Lebanon, there is a feeling that the war has now ended. There was jubilation on the roads heading south, clogged with traffic, as thousands of people returned to their homes, ignoring warnings from Israel’s military not to return to evacuation zones.

Many, however, will find they have no homes to return to. More than 40,000 houses have been destroyed, and over a quarter of Lebanon’s buildings near the southern border have been damaged.

The US-brokered ceasefire came into effect at 4am on Wednesday and will begin with a 60-day truce in the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.

The terms of the agreement broadly align with UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which effectively brought the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war to an end, though both parties went on to violate it.

Hezbollah is expected to move its weapons north of the Litani River, some 30 km from the Israeli border. For its part, Israel will remove all its troops from Lebanese soil during a 60-day transition phase, which will see the Lebanese Armed Forces backfill positions in the south with support from the UN peacekeeping mission UNIFIL. 

Diplomatic efforts to secure a ceasefire in Lebanon came to a head on Tuesday night after Israel’s security cabinet voted 10-1 in favour. Minutes later, Biden announced that Israel and Lebanon had accepted the terms.

“This is designed to be a permanent cessation of hostilities. What is left of Hezbollah and other terrorist organisations will not be allowed, I emphasise, will not be allowed to threaten the security of Israel again,” Biden said.

On Tuesday, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said how long the ceasefire lasted would depend on what happened in Lebanon. “If Hezbollah violates the agreement and attempts to rearm, we will strike. If they try to renew terror activities near the border, we will strike,” he said.

Netanyahu also said that by ending the war against Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Israeli military could ramp up its war on Gaza and focus on “the Iranian threat”.

An important turning point in the war for the Israelis was when Hezbollah dropped its demand for an end to the fighting in Gaza as a condition for a ceasefire in Lebanon.

The US will not deploy troops on the ground in southern Lebanon but will oversee the deal’s implementation from its embassy in Beirut in coordination with Israel, France, Lebanon, and the UN.

A major sticking point of the ceasefire agreement was a clause that would allow Israel to strike targets in Lebanon if it deemed Hezbollah had violated its terms by attacking Israel or moving weapons south. For the Lebanese parties to the deal, this was unacceptable and viewed as a violation of territorial integrity.

Instead, the US has provided guarantees to support Israeli military actions against potential Hezbollah violations, though this does not form part of the deal.

Hostilities began on 8 October last year after Hezbollah fired rockets at the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms in support of Hamas, following Israel’s war on Gaza after the Palestinian group’s attack in Israel. Communities from both sides of the border were displaced by 11 months of low-intensity conflict and tit-for-tat exchanges of fire.

The war in Lebanon escalated dramatically on 23 September when Israel launched a widespread air campaign and subsequent land invasion following an attack on Hezbollah’s telecommunications network days earlier with booby-trapped explosives.

Most of Lebanon’s casualties occurred in the violent two months that followed.

In this time, Hezbollah has suffered several devastating blows. The militant group has lost most of its military command, including Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, and has seen much of its weapons and infrastructure destroyed.

Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel and the Golan Heights have killed 45 civilians and 73 soldiers, including those killed on Lebanese soil. The group has managed to target large urban centres such as Tel Aviv with rockets despite its losses throughout the conflict, including launching a drone attack that struck Netanyahu’s private residence in the seaside town of Caesarea.

The truce came into effect after one of the most violent days Lebanon has witnessed since the war began. Within minutes of the 4am deadline, several parts of Lebanon, including Beirut, were still being bombed.

Israeli attacks intensified on Tuesday and went on late into the night, with Beirut especially affected. According to Lebanon’s health ministry, 15 people were killed and 19 injured on Tuesday, though this number is expected to rise.

With no warning, Israel targeted a building in central Beirut at around 2.30pm, in Noweiri, a densely populated neighbourhood. A three-story building was destroyed, which residents said was housing displaced families.

At the same time, Israel’s military spokesperson, Avichay Adraee, began issuing a raft of evacuation orders for neighbourhoods in Dahiyeh, Beirut’s southern suburbs where Hezbollah holds sway.

A wave of airstrikes came less than 30 minutes after the announcements. Within two minutes, twenty airstrikes hit Dahiyeh. The skyline was blanketed in smoke from a tranche of buildings turned to rubble, adding to the ruins of an area that had been decimated in the past two months.

Later, and for the first time during the war, the Israeli military issued evacuation orders for central Beirut, including Hamra, the city’s busy residential and commercial area that has taken in large numbers of displaced people.

There was terror on the streets of Beirut. Thousands of people descended into the streets, not sure where to turn next, with no part of the city seeming safe. Children, still in their pyjamas, were rushed along by their mothers carrying plastic bags they had packed in panic.

Almost everyone was on their phones, cross-checking X and their maps to see where the next airstrike might be.

The roads in Beirut were filled with traffic, with thousands of cars heading east towards Achrafieh to escape the western and central parts of the city as the latest bombardment began.

Similar scenes developed after evacuation orders in Baalbek and Saida, in eastern and southern Lebanon respectively. These towns, as well as others in the south including Tyre, Bint Jbeil and Nabatieh, were all bombed.

Israeli warplanes also targeted Lebanon’s three northern border crossings with Syria for the first time, potentially cutting off these roads, as Israeli attacks did with Lebanon’s eastern routes to Syria.

In another first, Israeli troops on the ground in southern Lebanon claimed to have reached the Litani River on Tuesday at around midday, though in an area close to the border, a little over 3km away.

The Litani marks a symbolic boundary for Israel, and a defining part of its war objective to push Hezbollah behind the river. Pictures of Israeli troops crossing the river were posted on X, seemingly to showcase that a victory had been achieved. 

For its part, Hezbollah launched attacks against Israel’s territory and its troops in southern Lebanon throughout Tuesday. Alerts sounded around central and northern Israel, and a Hezbollah rocket that hit Nahariya left at least two people injured. 

Hezbollah also claimed to have launched multiple successful attacks on Israeli troops in southern Lebanon, saying it had destroyed a Merkava tank in the town of Khiam, injuring its crew.

Khiam became a key battleground and has seen fierce clashes in recent days as Israeli troops attempted to take the position. Hezbollah claimed other attacks on Israeli troops in the southern towns of Deir Mimas and Ebel El Saqi.

But the ceasefire has already shown signs of fragility. On Wednesday morning, Israel’s military announced it had opened fire on several vehicles “carrying suspects inside a restricted area”.

This has been the only incident so far, and for now, all in Lebanon continue to hope that the ceasefire will bring a lasting truce and permanent end to the war.

Alex Martin Astley is a freelance journalist based in Beirut, covering conflict, foreign policy, and social justice issues

Follow him on X: @AlexMartin6190