The loose ends of the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Lebanon point to an uncertain future. international

The ceasefire agreement between Israel and Lebanon announced this Tuesday by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will provide relief to the exhausted Lebanese population and prevent the country from becoming a new Gaza, but it leaves several loopholes that risk turning it into Gaza. Has been born. A rest from war instead of lasting peace. Essentially, the main thing is that it will be based on a letter of guarantee given to Israel from the United States that it will be able to bomb Lebanon not only in retaliation for the attacks, but also when it feels that Hezbollah fails to comply. Used to be. As Netanyahu has made clear, he will do so “by force” in the event of minimal compliance.

This is the main point that has reassured the undecideds in Israel fearing a re-occurrence of the situation after the last war in 2006: Hezbollah has concentrated its forces, arsenals and weapons south of the Litani River (about 30 kilometers from the border). Attendance has increased significantly. Despite the fact that the UN resolution that ended the war (and is still in force) prohibited it because 10,000 blue helmets monitored its compliance. The UN mission had an obligation to inform the Lebanese Army of the violations, which it did nothing to stop, risking civil war.

Israel’s self-granted right to bomb Lebanon effectively nullifies Resolution 1701, which prohibits it. Also the violation of Lebanese airspace which Israel has been doing for years and about which nothing is said in the agreement. In the text of the agreement, which has been disclosed by the Lebanese newspaper Lo Orient Le Jour, With Donald Trump becoming president in less than two months, potential Israeli attacks, with Washington’s approval, are protected by the “right of self-defense.”

The next US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee (who denies the occupation of Palestinian territories and calls Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank “neighborhoods and areas”) assured this Tuesday that Netanyahu “will do very little by keeping “The right to resume hostilities if Hezbollah breaks the ceasefire.” What the latter includes is actually in consultation with Washington. That will be determined by Israel itself and whether it believes that the Lebanese Armed Forces did not act.

An example of this would be Hezbollah’s famous “reconstitution” south of the Litani River, an organization with political (with representatives in parliament), military, educational, religious and charitable branches. And with notable popularity among the region’s Shias, who consider it the only force that prevents Israel from invading the country, something the armed forces neither want nor can do (they also have an air force. There is a shortage).

Israel has warned that it will prevent Hezbollah from regrouping south of Litani, taking advantage of the return of civilians to homes that have not been destroyed by Israeli troops on their way. But this Tuesday, a representative of Hezbollah, Hassan Fadlallah, assured in an interview with the Reuters agency that “the resistance that was fighting on the battlefield” will help the displaced (more than a million, hundreds of thousands) after the war. Will dedicate himself to. thousands of them in Syria) to return to their villages and rebuild areas destroyed by Israeli attacks.

That is to say, “without Hezbollah’s participation and its willingness to abide by the provisions of the agreement, it would be completely meaningless,” the newspaper’s commentator wrote this Tuesday. Haaretz Zvi Bareil. “Under this agreement, Hezbollah will not be disarmed. Its weapons, its thousands of long- and short-range missiles, its arsenal of drones, its advanced ballistic technology and its entire military infrastructure will remain in place. If the agreement is fully implemented, the organization will move north of the Litani River, away from Israel. But it will not disappear.”

The Lebanese government, the same one that has an interim prime minister and has been without a president for two years, will be in charge of monitoring arms sales, distribution and production, as well as dismantling all unauthorized facilities linked to production. Arms and related material as per agreement, And the United States, Israel’s main ally, will chair the committee overseeing implementation, risking accusations of bias.

The agreement offers Washington another mission: “It will strengthen indirect negotiations between Israel and Lebanon to achieve an internationally recognized land border.” This is what the Beirut government has been demanding for years, demanding that Israel agree to negotiate over the disputes they created over the 2000 UN-certified Line of withdrawal. This idea also failed in the 2006 resolution, and Israel, which is in a stronger position and – as Netanyahu has pointed out – is now concerned about showing strength to Hezbollah’s patron, Iran, has that melon to open. There may not be many reasons.

Israel agreed in 2022 – like this ceasefire, negotiated by the White House envoy, Amos Hochstein – to the delimitation of maritime boundaries for gas exploitation, which left most of the areas on the southern side and some on the Lebanese side. So much so that Netanyahu (then briefly in opposition) initially promised to condemn the deal if he returned to power, and he did not.

This is not the only issue that could linger as diplomatic attention shifts away from Lebanon and Western foreign ministries focus on more pressing crises. The second is the reconstruction of a devastated country, in which it is estimated that the bombings have destroyed or damaged 100,000 housing units. The Israeli army, following its earlier Gaza model, has also left 37 villages in southern Lebanon in ruins. On the 14th, the World Bank estimated that 13 months of conflict had cost the country $8.5 billion (8.12 billion euros), with particularly high intensity in the last two months. A total of 166,000 people have lost their jobs and GDP will decline by 6.6% this year, bringing the economic crisis to a 34% loss over five years.