Ahead of the truce's 4 a.m. deadline, which President Biden called a permanent cessation of hostilities, Israel and Hezbollah traded intensive rounds of back-and-forth rocket fire and strikes.
The truce, which included mediation by France, halts 14 months of fighting since Hezbollah began attacking Israel following Hamas’s terrorist attack against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
The terms of the deal require Israel to gradually withdraw its troops from southern Lebanon over a period of 60 days and Hezbollah to retreat from southern Lebanon to north of the Litani River. The Lebanese Armed Forces and Lebanese security forces are tasked with patrolling the territory of southern Lebanon to enforce that Hezbollah cannot reconstitute in the territory.
The deal builds on a 2006 ceasefire agreement between Israel and Lebanon — from United Nations Security Council 1701 — that called for no Hezbollah or armed group presence south of the Litani River and was supposed to be monitored and enforced by a U.N. peacekeeping mission, but that was never successful.
To overcome that failure, the terms of the latest agreement focus on the Lebanese Armed Forces and Lebanese security forces to maintain enforcement, and have established a multinational monitoring force, chaired by the U.S., to deter any violations of the agreement.
“The United States, together with France, are going to be joining an existing mechanism referred to as the tripartite mechanism. This is something that was created shortly after the 2006 war to include UNIFIL, the U.N. force in Lebanon, and Israel and Lebanon,” a senior Biden administration official told reporters Tuesday night. “It will now — the agreement states that it will be reformulated and enhanced to include France and to be chaired by the United States.”
There will be no U.S. combat troops in the area but American diplomats and military personnel will be part of a team receiving any complaints of violations from either side.
Read the full report at TheHill.com.
