Israel-Lebanon 10-day ceasefire goes into effect

Washington: The leaders of Israel and Lebanon have agreed to a 10-day ceasefire that has now gone into effect, in another potential step towards ending the broader conflict with Iran.

But it is not clear how the ceasefire – announced by US President Donald Trump with a start time of 7am Friday (AEST) – will work in practice, as Israel is fighting the terrorist group Hezbollah, rather than the Lebanese state.

Trump said he spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Lebanese President Joseph Aoun on Thursday (US time), following talks between top diplomats in Washington earlier in the week.

“These two leaders have agreed that in order to achieve PEACE between their Countries, they will formally begin a 10-day CEASEFIRE,” Trump declared on social media.

Later, speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump asserted the Lebanese government was “working with Hezbollah” to enforce the truce. “We’re going to see how it all works out,” he said.

“They’re all agreeing. It’s a very nice little package, for about a week. We’re not going to have lots of bombs dropping, and we’re going to see if we can make peace between Lebanon and Israel.”

Despite the ceasefire in Iran, Israel has continued to launch strikes against targets associated with Hezbollah – the Iran-backed militia in Lebanon that is a listed terrorist organisation in Australia, the US and elsewhere.

Elliott Abrams, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and a former US special representative for Iran, said it was not clear who the ceasefire was actually between.

“If that means the state of Lebanon, what about Hezbollah? They can break it tomorrow and that’s the end of the 10 days,” he said.

Aoun does not control Hezbollah, though Abrams said he could potentially try to persuade them to stop through Lebanon’s parliamentary speaker Nabih Berri, a Hezbollah ally. “It’s not completely inconceivable to me.”

Senior Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah told Reuters the group had been informed by Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon that a one-week ceasefire could begin on Thursday evening.

Asked if Hezbollah would commit to the truce, Fadlallah said everything was tied to Israel’s commitment to halt all forms of hostilities, and credited Iran’s diplomatic efforts for the possible ceasefire.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu said he had agreed to the 10-day ceasefire in Lebanon, but described it as “temporary” and a “timeout”.

“We have an opportunity to make a historic peace agreement with Lebanon,” he said in a video message.

But Netanyahu said Israel had not agreed to a Hezbollah demand to withdraw from southern Lebanon. He said Israeli troops would remain in Lebanon in a “security zone” to its border with Syria. “That is where we are, and we are not leaving.”

Trump has invited Netanyahu and Aoun to the White House for a meeting, but did not say whether they had agreed to come.

The two countries do not have diplomatic relations and have not had high-level, in-person talks for more than 30 years – until the meeting between ambassadors at the US State Department this week.

There has been a ceasefire between the US, Iran and Israel since April 7, with ongoing talks to end the war that began on February 28. But the ceasefire did not include Lebanon.

Iran initially demanded that Lebanon be part of the truce as a precondition to negotiations with the US, but it participated in talks in Pakistan last week regardless.

Following the ceasefire announcement, Iranian parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said Iran would treat the truce with caution but would be “true to our pledge”.

He praised Hezbollah’s “steadfastness” and the unity of what he called the Axis of Resistance. “We will remain together until the full realisation of victory,” he said on X.

With Reuters, AP

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