In a 10-1 vote, the Israeli security cabinet voted today to accept a ceasefire in Lebanon. The security cabinet was originally supposed to vote at 4:00 PM local time, but the meeting was delayed several hours.
The exact terms of the deal are not public yet, but the reports are that this will be a 60-day ceasefire, during which Israel is to remove its ground troops from Lebanon. The Israelis have to report “suspicious movements” to a US-led group before taking action. This was a strong sticking point for the Israeli government, who sought a deal that specifically would not require them to cease firing on Lebanese territory.
President Biden says that the deal has been agreed to by both Israel and Hezbollah. He also said it will go into effect at 4:00 AM Wednesday Lebanon time, which is 9:00 PM Tuesday evening EST.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s announcement centered heavily on talking up Israeli attacks on Syria, Yemen, and the Gaza Strip. He insisted Hezbollah was set back “decades,” however, citing that they’d killed “all of the leaders” and destroyed most of the group’s rocket arsenals.
Netanyahu suggested the ceasefire is only temporary, and that they will attack Lebanon forcefully if Hezbollah takes any actions they object to. He further insisted that the ceasefire was important to “focus on the Iranian threat,” to “rearm the troops,” and to “isolate” Hamas in the Gaza Strip, saying the Lebanon ceasefire will help Israel in their “sacred mission” in Gaza.
His comments focused on talk of achieving a great, but non-specific military victory, and totally changing the face of the Middle East. Hezbollah and Lebanon’s government reportedly approved a ceasefire deal last week, though it is not confirmed that it is the same ceasefire deal Israel has agreed upon. At any rate, the reports indicate that a deal of some sort is imminent.
This is a good start! Let it go even further:Peace!
Notice there isn’t any official announcement from the Lebanese ?
The deal is being touted in the MSM as a deal which has been "accepted" by Hezbollah, yet there is absolutely no confirmation, no statement at all by Hezbollah.
There has not been ONE single statement from Hezbollah on this "deal" that I can find anywhere.
As far as I can tell, this is a UNILATERAL "ceasefire" – meaning that Hezbollah is NOT a part of the deal!
This means Israel appears to be conducting a "ceasefire" on its own!
If that is true, it means Israel has FAILED COMPLETELY in Lebanon, and is being forced to cease operations due to a complete inability to accomplish anything inside Lebanon!
However, I suspect that there is more to this than what is being reported. I suspect that Israel and the neocons have some sort of trick up their sleeves to restart the conflict, probably with direct US support.
First they will have to find a way to blame Hezbollah for "violating" the "ceasefire". Hezbollah and the Islamic Resistance have already fired on Israeli troops this morning according to Al-Manar. So this "ceasefire" which was supposed to have begun this morning at 9AM has already been "violated."
It's clear that Hizbollah has been negotiating from a position of strength, what is not clear is which are the exact terms of the deal are: I believe they include full retreat of Israel from Gaza, else it'd be akin to treason within Hizbolla's (and the broader Iran-aligned "the Resistance" ranks).
I believe that Bibi and Biden are presenting this deal as a victory, when it is a defeat.
Hey, ceasefire has been accepted by main parties.
Usual west hater actors are still denying it.
It is Bad news for their propaganda.
A bigger defeat for Israel than 2006. What got Israel to a ceasefire is internal American, Israeli and western politics. It has been stale mated by the resistance. They collectively knew that the longer the war goes on, the higher the chances of regional war. Already Israel has been humiliated in not being able to achieve any of its goals in Lebanon as it has been failing in Gaza. Also the Trump administrations needs calm for its assumption of power. Watch as Hezbollah celebrates. All the meanwhile the Palestinian resistance fights on.
An interesting view point. There is significant number of families of dead Hezbollah members who might disagree. Not to mention all the leaders of Hezbollah who started the war are dead. And toss in the number of Hezbollah who will never walk normally again because of their cell phones. Yes it was a great victory for them.
You are on the defensive. You have to try to deflect from the obvious resistance victory because on the Israeli side is only defeat. The reason Hezbollah already claimed victory is not because a non state resistance movement can defeat nuclear equipped, US supported, state of the art armed, paper tiger Israel, but because all they had to do was survive. To win, Israel had to accomplish its stated goals. It failed on every single one.
And you talk about dead and maimed Lebanese. You forget these people believe in an afterlife. The motto is victory or martyrdom. That belief alone makes them resilient and honorably human. The Israelis who only value their own lives are devastated by the surprise attack of October 7th, their inability to defeat Hamas, inability to return the hostages, the rallying of the world against them, the besieged everyone hates us mantra, the dead soldiers, the thousands wounded, many permanently, the psychological trauma, the running in and out of bomb shelters, the loss of jobs, failing economy.
"Yes it was a great victory for them."
Be ready to show us the Israeli celebrations tomorrow while, Hezbollah and the Lebanese show how dignified human beings celebrate their humanity, resilience and dignity..
Many questions: specifically which are the terms for Gaza, which is or should be directly linked to any ceasefire "in Lebanon" (what a distorted POV when Hizbollah is actually counter-attacking "Israel" massively, even by land at times!)
We have yet to hear from Hizbollah anyhow because Bibi and Biden are beating chest very aggressively, too much for their own good surely, but this may mean just posing for their Zionist backers, and the small print of the deal actually obligues Israel to pull out of Gaza altogether. We need to know the whole deal.