[News] Ceasefire 101: Israel fails at war goals, Hezbollah succeeds

[Anti-Imperialist News]

  Ceasefire 101: Israel fails at war goals, Hezbollah succeeds

Through its relentless military onslaught on Lebanon, Israel failed to 
create a land buffer in the south and return its northern settlers to 
their homes – while Hezbollah achieved its objectives of thwarting 
Israel's land invasion and retaining its military capabilities.

Ali Rizk <https://thecradle.co/authors/ali-rizk>

NOV 28, 2024 - 
https://thecradle.co/articles/ceasefire-101-israel-fails-at-war-goals-hezbollah-succeeds

Photo Credit: The Cradle

Hezbollah has once again proven to be a handful for Israel, 
notwithstanding the heavy blows 
<https://thecradle.co/articles/after-nasrallah-command-and-control-in-rapid-recovery>that 
were dealt to the resistance movement in the latest round of 
hostilities.  A ceasefire 
<https://thecradle.co/articles/netanyahu-announces-lebanon-ceasefire-as-airstrikes-pummel-beirut>deal 
that has come into effect after over two months of full-scale conflict 
on the Lebanese–Israeli front falls far short of what Israel had hoped 
to achieve in the earlier stages of this conflict when the momentum 
seemed to be on its side.

For its part, the Lebanese movement has managed to survive what was, 
without a doubt, the heaviest and most sophisticated onslaught ever 
launched in the history of warfare.

While the ceasefire deal is composed of 13 provisions, it centers around 
UN Security Council (UNSC) Resolution1701, 
<https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/10/1155221>which brought an end to 
the 2006 Israel war on Lebanon. This, in and of itself, points to a 
failure for Israel when viewed against its list of initial demands.

*Israeli demands and UN involvement*

One of those early demands 
<https://www.lbcgroup.tv/news/news-bulletin-reports/804514/un-session-fails-to-yield-ceasefire-in-lebanon-israels-call-for-resolu/en>was 
made during a UN session last month, when Tel Aviv called for the 
implementation of UNSC Resolution 1559, which effectively calls for the 
disarmament of Hezbollah (the actual wording of the resolution calls for 
the disarmament of ‘militias’ – an implicit reference to Hezbollah).

The enforcement mechanism of 1701 based on the new agreement, however, 
appears to differ somewhat from the language put in place 18 years ago. 
One of the provisions of the new deal is the establishment of an 
international committee to oversee its enforcement and guarantee that 
both sides live up to their commitments as stated in the provisions.

This effectively means more enhanced oversight of the commitment of both 
parties to 1701, given that the task of monitoring the implementation of 
this resolution since 2006 had fallen to the UN peacekeeping forces in 
south Lebanon (UNIFIL) without the involvement of other foreign parties.

In line with the recent agreement, an international committee will be 
led by the US, with France also playing a key role. Importantly, 
however, its mandate does not include actual enforcement authority – 
that role will remain reserved mainly for the Lebanese army. US 
President Joe Biden sought to emphasize this point in remarks he made 
from the White House, in which he declared 
<https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2d3gj9ewxo>the ceasefire deal had 
been reached.

“There will be no US combat troops in the area, but there will be 
military support for the Lebanese Armed Forces, as we've done in the 
past,” said Biden, adding that “in this case, it'll be typically done 
with the Lebanese army and in conjunction with the French military as well.”

According to retired Lebanese army general Mounir Shehadeh, the presence 
of a committee led by the US will translate into stricter enforcement 
measures in terms of ending any armed presence for Hezbollah south of 
the Litani River, which is one of the original provisions of 1701. As 
Shehadeh tells /The Cradle/:

    “I don’t think the Lebanese army through its intelligence
    directorate and based on its own intelligence will proceed out of
    its own initiative to search for the possible whereabouts of weapons
    caches belonging to the resistance. But the Lebanese army and UNIFIL
    will be forced by this committee led by America to conduct searches
    of different locations.”

A map indicating where the Israeli forces are currently deployed in 
south Lebanon one day after the ceasefire took effect.

*Tel Aviv’s unrealized goals *

This, however, remains a far cry from Israel’s long-standing objective 
of having foreign troops deployed in Lebanon with a mandate that allows 
them to use force to end Hezbollah’s armed presence in the south.

For years, Israel has unsuccessfully sought 
<https://m.naharnet.com/stories/en/232122-israel-says-unifil-presence-in-lebanon-unnecessary>to 
empower UNIFIL troops with a more robust enforcement role under Chapter 
7 of the UN Charter, which would authorize them to use force to 
implement Resolution 1701. Western allies like the US have also failed 
to achieve 
<https://yalibnan.com/2023/08/27/lebanon-rejects-renewal-of-unifil-mandate-under-chapter-7/>this 
goal.

Even if the new deal ends Hezbollah’s armed presence south of the Litani 
River, this would not necessarily mean that the balance of deterrence 
with Israel would be significantly altered. As Shehadeh explains:

    “It is clear that in the south of the Litani, missiles were launched
    from the valleys in the Eastern, Central, and Western strips. It
    will impact the resistance operationally but not weaken it. Should
    the resistance be forced to, I believe it will move these weapons
    from the south to the north of the Litani.”

It is also the case that violations from the Israeli side will now be 
under closer scrutiny with the formation of the international committee. 
Israel has violated this resolution on a near-daily basis for years, 
mostly through illegal overflights into Lebanese airspace.

Meanwhile, other Israeli objectives also appear to have failed to 
materialize. This includes a domestic Lebanese uprising against 
Hezbollah, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu explicitly 
called 
<https://nypost.com/2024/10/08/world-news/netanyahu-calls-on-lebanon-to-take-back-control-from-hezbollah-free-your-country/>for 
in an address to the Lebanese people.

Tel Aviv also failed to return by force the tens of thousands of 
northern settlers who have been “displaced” by Hezbollah rocket fire, 
despite having declared 
<https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/-israel--adds-return-of-north-settlers-to-war-objectives>publicly 
in September that this was a new goal in its war objectives.

Perhaps most importantly, Israel has not succeeded in severely 
undermining Hezbollah’s fighting capability. Last Sunday – just days 
before the ceasefire – the Lebanese resistance launched 
<https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20241124-eu-urges-immediate-halt-to-israel-hezbollah-war>one 
of its heaviest, most potent missile attacks on Israel since the 
outbreak of the latest round of hostilities.

According 
<https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2024/11/israel-records-250-launches-lebanon-hezbollah-targets-tel-aviv-south>to 
Hezbollah, several military sites in Tel Aviv were targeted, in addition 
to the Ashdod naval base, which lies even further south. Video footage 
and data from Israelis also showed unprecedented damage to structures 
and vehicles in key northern and central cities, such as Petah Tikva, 
Haifa, Nahariya, and Tel Aviv – the state's most important industrial, 
commercial, financial, and tech centers.

The Israeli military and media confirmed 
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/11/24/hezbollah-says-it-hit-ashdod-naval-base-and-tel-aviv-three-wounded>that 
air sirens went off in the suburbs of Tel Aviv and that around four 
million people – almost half of Israel's total population – were forced 
into shelters that day. Concurrently, in Lebanon's south, Hezbollah 
soldiers were putting up a strong fight against invading Israeli ground 
forces, preventing them 
<https://thecradle.co/articles/in-the-trenches-israel-struggles-on-the-lebanese-battlefield>from 
infiltrating deep into Lebanese territory or holding any significant ground.

*The resistance lives to fight another day *

These realities stand out as a significant failure on the part of Israel 
and an important feat on the part of Hezbollah, precisely because the 
latter had accumulated unprecedented heavy losses: the assassination of 
its former secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah and several senior 
military commanders, in addition to the pager detonation operation 
<https://thecradle.co/articles-id/26951>which took thousands of the 
resistance fighters out of combat.

But that the Lebanese movement managed to survive a 
security-intelligence war the likes of which the world had never seen 
should not come as that much of a surprise, given its sheer size.

As observers have noted 
<https://www.foreignaffairs.com/israel/targeted-killings-wont-destroy-hezbollah>, 
Hezbollah has deep institutional and bureaucratic roots inside Lebanon 
that make targeted attacks and security operations – despite their level 
of sophistication – insufficient in bringing the resistance to its 
knees. As Nasrallah often repeated, and as has since been chanted 
<https://www.instagram.com/hespresseng/reel/DAd_8HSv3RW/>in the streets 
of Beirut after his martyrdom: “Never will we accept humiliation.”
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