Before celebrating the emerging Israel-Lebanon ceasefire deal, approval is necessary first; nothing happens without that. If Israel approves the deal, it will then be up to Hezbollah to do the same.However, in Lebanon, it’s not Hezbollah that will officially approve the agreement. Instead, it will be approved by the State of Lebanon, meaning that Hezbollah may not even be mentioned or be a signatory to the deal. This will essentially leave open the claim that Hezbollah doesn’t have to abide by the agreement since it’s not at the table.This is the usual bait and switch that goes back decades.What’s at stake here? First of all, Israel will want to show that it met its objectives in Lebanon. In September, Israel added an objective to the Israel-Hamas War: returning the 60,000 evacuees who have been evacuated since last October back to their homes in the North.By October 2024, Hezbollah threats along the border harmed communities, killed soldiers and civilians, and damaged around 1,000 homes. Then-defense minister Yoav Gallant wanted to strike Hezbollah hard since October 2023, but he was held back. Then, in mid-September, the government moved forward and added securing the North as a war goal.
What’s at stake in the deal?
The question is, has the North been made more secure? Hezbollah continues to launch rockets at northern and central Israel, killing and wounding civilians nearly daily.Hezbollah has lost its terror infrastructure along the line of villages closest to Israel, which likely means it can’t fire anti-tank missiles at homes on the border. Its heavy Burkan and other rockets may be affected, but its arsenal of 107mm and other rockets likely still pose a threat from firing positions as close as six miles from the border.It took Israel two months to defeat Hezbollah near the border, an area Israel conquered in around one day of fighting in 1982 during the First Lebanon War.On the one hand, the sizable task of defeating Hezbollah on the border was because Hezbollah had grown more powerful. However, it is also a window into the IDF’s tactics.The IDF prefers long, slow wars today, where it loses fewer soldiers per month than in the past, but where the overall achievement is never clear, and neither is the strategy. In Lebanon, it is possible Israel eliminated around 2,500 Hezbollah operatives, along with its chain of command and leadership. Yet, the group does not show signs of being completely defeated.If the deal indeed advances, many questions still remain: Will Hezbollah return to the border? Will Israel’s residents return? Will the rocket fire stop?There will supposedly be mechanisms in place to enable Israel to continue to act against Hezbollah. One report even compared this to the “war between the wars” in Syria, where Israel often carries out strikes on Iranian smuggling of weapons.Will airstrikes in Lebanon become the norm then? If yes, won’t Hezbollah act to enforce its “equation” of always responding to these strikes? Doesn’t that keep us in the same place? Has Israel dictated terms to Hezbollah?It appears more likely that it is Israel who is under pressure.Nevertheless, the deal will be spun on both sides as a great victory. Hezbollah will claim that it won merely by existing after the war, while Israel will claim it has set back Hezbollah’s capabilities for many years.
Setting back capabilities
However, we have heard this before. In May 2021, the IDF also claimed to have set back Hamas capabilities many years with ten days of bombing. In retrospect, very little was achieved because precision airstrikes don’t win wars, and they are not a magic wand.In this respect, Israel suffers from some of the challenges the US faced in Vietnam. It is easy to count the number of things that were struck, the way the US counted “bodies” of enemies eliminated, but this doesn’t always lead to winning the war; you can win every tactical battle and still lose.After the Second Lebanon War, Israel also felt it had not won. In retrospect, though, that war brought many years of peace. Hezbollah grew exponentially more powerful, UNIFIL failed, and the Lebanese army failed to secure peace, but there was relative peace for many years.Israel may be able to say it achieved a decade, or at least several years, of peace and count this as an achievement. In fact, just taking the pressure off Israel’s other fronts could be an achievement, especially since Israel hasn’t achieved its war aims in Gaza and 101 hostages are still held there.One goal of the ceasefire is to disentangle Hezbollah from the Gaza war. Hezbollah began its attacks on October 8, 2023, to back Hamas and launch a multi-front war, along with the Houthis and Iraqi militias, all prodded by Iran, which sought to surround Israel with proxies and pawns.By removing Hezbollah from the chessboard, it is possible that the board of the multi-front war will change. The great concern is whether Hezbollah ties itself to Gaza in the future and feels it can attack Israel again when it wants.One thing to note from past ceasefires is that once Israel withdraws troops from Lebanon, there will be inertia against going back in; this is how UNIFIL was allowed to fail last time. Will Israel be willing to step back up to the plate when Hezbollah flags appear in villages on the border and northern residents demand action?Another concern is Hezbollah’s arsenal. How fast can they replenish it? Even if it lost 3,000 fighters and 80% of its rockets, is this something that can be rebuilt in a year or two? Hezbollah may not be a party to the agreement, allowing it to do as it pleases.Will the “mechanism” that enables Israel to complain about Hezbollah’s activities really create a system that allows Israel to respond? What will France’s role be? Will Lebanon’s army ever appear along the border, and will UNIFIL ever fulfill its mandate?The US pressured Israel into a maritime deal in 2022 that emboldened Hezbollah. If Israel is pressured into this ceasefire and Hezbollah feels emboldened again, won’t it be only a matter of time until war returns? Will Hezbollah shift its threat to the Golan, claiming that sector is not included in the agreement?Many questions surround the prospect of a ceasefire deal. If Iran feels it was defeated in Lebanon, that may lead to other deals and ceasefires. However, if Iran feels that it preserved most of Hezbollah and thus won in Lebanon, then the other fronts, such as Iraq, Syria, Yemen, the West Bank, and Gaza, may be emboldened.How Israel plays this will be key.