The ceasefire that was supposed to end the war in Lebanon has effectively broken down as Israel continues to attack Hezbollah operatives and military infrastructure on almost a daily basis.
In its latest operation, on November 23, Israel killed Hezbollah’s chief of staff, Haytham Ali Tabatabai, the former commander of the Radwan Force, a special unit created to conduct offensive operations in Israeli territory immediately south of the Lebanese border.
His predecessor, Fuad Shukr, was killed in an Israeli air strike in Beirut in the summer of 2024.
Tabatabai, who was previously in charge of Hezbollah’s offices in Syria and Yemen, was outranked only by Naim Qassem, the secretary-general of Hezbollah.
Killed in Dahiya, a Hezbollah bastion in the southern suburb of Beirut, Tabatabai was the highest-ranking leader of Hezbollah to be eliminated since Israel’s assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, Qassem’s predecessor, more than a year ago.
Nasrallah declared war on Israel only a day after Hamas’ invasion of southern Israel on October 7, 2023, during which heavily-armed terrorists murdered roughly 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 Israelis and foreigners. In a show of solidarity with Hamas, Hezbollah fired the first of thousands of rockets and mortars at Israeli towns, kibbutzim and army bases in the Galilee.
The impotent Lebanese government remained silent in the face of Hezbollah’s aggression and did not intervene.
Israel retaliated, setting off a low-intensity war of attrition that displaced some 60,000 Israelis and about an equal number of Lebanese.
After a year of tit-for-tat exchanges, during which scores of Israeli civilians and soldiers were killed, Israel invaded southern Lebanon to uproot Hezbollah’s bases south of the Litani River, a distance of about 30 kilometres from its northern border. By all accounts, Israel destroyed 80 percent of Hezbollah’s firepower, killed 5,000 of its soldiers and wounded 13,000. More than 4,000 Lebanese were killed in the fighting.
Having fulfilled its objective, Israel signed a U.S. and French-brokered truce on November 27, 2024. Hezbollah, having been militarily degraded, readily complied with it.
Under its terms, Israel and Hezbollah were due to withdraw from the area south of the Litani River, while Hezbollah was required to disarm, in line with United Nations Resolution 1701, which ended the first Israel-Hezbollah war in 2006.
Since last November, Israel has repeatedly accused Hezbollah of violating the truce. Claiming that Hezbollah seeks to rearm and reconstitute itself, Israel has killed a succession of its commanders and foot soldiers and destroyed its bases, ammunition depots and missile production facilities south and north of the Litani.
Israeli attacks in the past year have killed 330 Lebanese and wounded nearly 1,000.
Hezbollah, having been significantly weakened during the last war, has so far not responded militarily to Israel’s strikes.
But Hezbollah’s leadership has emphatically stated that it will not disarm unless Israel pulls out of Lebanon. Currently, Israel occupies five outposts in the south of the country.
The Lebanese government claims that Israeli strikes have given Hezbollah a pretext to hold on to its weapons.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun has endorsed a United Nations resolution calling for Hezbollah’s disarmament. He also backs a U.S. roadmap to disarm Hezbollah by the close of this year. In his latest comment on this issue, Aoun underscored the importance of Lebanon assuming state control over weapons in the country.
Earlier this month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Hezbollah is intent on rearming, and that Israel will do whatever is necessary to nip its efforts in the bud.
“Hezbollah is constantly trying to rearm,” he said. “We expect the Lebanese government to uphold its commitments to disarm Hezbollah. But it’s clear that we’ll exercise our right to self-defence, as stipulated in the ceasefire. We won’t let Lebanon become a renewed front against us, and we’ll do what’s necessary.”
Defence Minister Israel Katz has said that Israel will press on with its offensive in Lebanon until the Lebanese government disarms Hezbollah.
Israeli intelligence contends that Hezbollah has begun to rebuild its military infrastructure in several areas in Lebanon, including the regions north of the Litani and south of Beirut.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Hezbollah is reconstituting its forces and weapons capabilities. Hezbollah is reportedly restocking its arsenal of rockets, anti-tank missiles, and artillery by means of smuggling and domestic production. Israel believes that Hezbollah has resumed the production of precision and long-range missiles.
In recent months, Israeli officials claim, Hezbollah has reportedly smuggled hundreds of rockets from Syria into Lebanon. Prior to the fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad last December, Iran, his close ally, supplied Hezbollah with weapons and funding by way of Syria.
Since Assad’s downfall, the new government in Damascus has sought to block Hezbollah’s activities in Syria. As a result, Hezbollah has been forced to find alternative routes and methods to smuggle weapons and funds into Lebanon.
Syria’s transitional government has seized numerous weapons shipments bound for Hezbollah, expelled Iranian-backed militias, and all but expunged Iranian influence in Syria.
Israel, as well as the United States, have been pressing Lebanon’s army to disarm Hezbollah at a more rapid pace. Two months ago, the U.S. special envoy to the Middle East, Morgan Ortagus, urged Lebanon to accelerate disarmament and tighten border security so as to stop Hezbollah’s smuggling attempts.
For all intents and purposes, the Lebanese government rejected this demand, fearing it could ignite another civil war in Lebanon. The last such war broke out in 1975 and lasted until 1990.
The Lebanese government has consistently claimed that Israeli air strikes have prevented the army from fully deploying to southern Lebanon to disarm Hezbollah.
The army’s commander, Brigadier General Rodolphe Haykal, claims that progress has been made, and is confident that it can disarm Hezbollah by year’s end, in line with the ceasefire. He claims that the army since September has assumed control of over nearly all of southern Lebanon, conducted 4,190 operations, seized 150 Hezbollah tunnels and weapons caches, confiscated 53 Hezbollah rocket launchers, and arrested 346 individuals.
The army, too, has increased patrols along the Lebanon-Syria border to prevent Iran from transferring arms and resources to Hezbollah to support its reconstitution.
The U.S. Central Command, which has closely monitored the situation, reported on October 15 that the Lebanese army has seized about 100,000 Hezbollah rockets and 400 missiles since the truce.
The United States, which has been generous in providing the Lebanese army with financial assistance, has urged Lebanon to engage Israel in direct talks on establishing a land border. There are 16 contested points along the Israeli-Lebanese border.
The U.S. special envoy to Syria, Tom Barrack, who has disparaged Lebanon as a “failed state,” has strongly advised the Lebanese government to reach an agreement with Israel.
As he put it recently, “Either they learn the lesson and decide to enter into direct negotiations with Israel under the auspices of the United States, to set a timetable and mechanism for disarming Hezbollah, or Lebanon will be left to its fate.”
There have been indirect contacts between Israel and Lebanon, but as Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam pointed out, they have reached a “dead end” due to Israel’s ongoing strikes in Lebanon. The Lebanese government has routinely condemned them as violations of international law.
Nonetheless, Lebanese Foreign Minister Youssef Rajji has stated that a diplomatic solution with Israel is necessary to ensure lasting security and stability in southern Lebanon.
The Wall Street Journal reported on October 30 that Lebanon is willing to increase intelligence sharing and coordination with Israel. If true, this would be a seminal development, since Israel and Lebanon have been locked in a state of war since 1948.
Before this can happen, Hezbollah will have to be disarmed. At the moment, this looks like a remote possibility. Which means that Lebanon will continue to be gripped by war and bloodshed indefinitely.