The 10-day ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon that the president of the United States announced this Thursday came into effect this midnight (11 p.m. in mainland Spain). Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to cease hostilities, according to Trump, who did not provide details. Netanyahu gave them shortly after: he stressed that he will maintain troops in an area of up to 10 kilometers inside southern Lebanon and hinted that his aircraft will continue bombing, noting that he rejected Hezbollah’s demand for “calm in exchange for calm.” The Shiite militia defends its “right to resistance” as long as the occupation lasts.
The day has been marked from the first hour by dialogue towards a truce in Lebanon, where Israeli troops have continued to advance during the day. Iran demanded it to bring the dialogue with the United States to a successful conclusion and included Lebanon in the 15-day global ceasefire that ends next Wednesday. But Israel ignored it—with Trump’s green light—and the matter has so muddied the negotiations with Tehran that the Republican has been forced to change course and impose it, even temporarily, on his great ally in the Middle East.
After announcing the ceasefire, Trump added that he will invite Netanyahu and Aoun to the White House to hold “in-depth talks” and estimated that it will take place “in one or two weeks.”
They are the “leaders” of Israel and Lebanon that Trump predicted would speak this Thursday, making history. A Netanyahu minister, Gila Gamliel, also said it before the ceasefire announcement. But it didn’t happen. With Israel killing dozens of Lebanese daily, and Hezbollah accusing the Government of treason for negotiating directly with the historical enemy without obtaining anything, Aoun rejected the hastily announced conversation.
Instead he spoke to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and insisted that Israel must cease hostilities in Lebanon if it wants direct negotiations, with the first direct contact in decades between their respective ambassadors in Washington. He has achieved it, even if it is for the moment for 10 days.
The president of Lebanon described the ceasefire as “the natural starting point for direct negotiations between both countries” and noted his “commitment” to “stopping Israeli escalation.” Israeli bombs have caused another 29 deaths in the country in 24 hours, as reported this Thursday by health authorities.
Following its announcement, Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam celebrated the fulfillment of a demand that Beirut “has fought for since day one” and was its “main objective during Tuesday’s meeting in Washington,” in reference to what, in the eyes of many Lebanese, was an uncomfortable meeting on Tuesday.
The Lebanese army and Hezbollah have issued recommendations that those forcibly displaced from the south of the country refrain from returning until the application of the truce is clear. “We understand the depth of your desire to return to your villages,” the Shiite party-militia requested in a statement, “but we urge you, for your safety and your precious lives, to continue to be patient and resist.”
As usually happens before a ceasefire, the last hours have been intense, even more so given a horizon of, for now, only a 10-day pause. Two hours before the truce came into force, Hezbollah launched a barrage of 25 rockets against the Galilee, according to data from the Israeli army. Emergency services have reported at least one serious injury.
Already early in the morning, signs of the imminence of a ceasefire in Lebanon were growing, with the Israeli army destroying the last bridge over the Litani River, moving towards the Syrian Golan and pushing to take Bint Jbeil, a symbolic town for Hezbollah.
this truce. Just six days ago he assured: “We will not stop hitting Hezbollah until” the country. The situation has not changed since then. Nor did he mention its possibility in his speech this Wednesday, when it was already the voice of the people
This Thursday, amid the indignation of the opposition and the mayors of northern Israel, he justified it in the “historic opportunity to reach a peace agreement with Lebanon”, which he claims to have “completely changed the balance of forces with Hezbollah” since the war they had in 2024 and in which they will present two “fundamental demands”: the disarmament of Hezbollah and a “sustainable peace agreement”, with “a peace based on strength.”
Although it only lasts ten days, the truce is an unpopular decision in an election year, even more so after having promised time and again the never-achieved definitive victory over Hezbollah.
It is, in any case, a ceasefire without withdrawal of Israeli troops in southern Lebanon, to the border area with Syria that they also occupy. According to Netanyahu’s words, Israel intends to act as it did after the 2024 war, with almost daily aerial bombardments in different parts of the country. They caused more than 400 deaths, without the Shiite militia launching a single rocket. Netanyahu’s government accused Hezbollah of violating the truce by secretly reinforcing itself.
This Thursday, the prime minister claimed to have rejected two Hezbollah conditions for this imminent ceasefire: the withdrawal of troops from all Lebanese territory and that it be “based on the ‘calm in exchange for calm’ model. I did not accept any of them and, in fact, they are not being met,” he stressed.
The crossfire began on March 2, when against Israel since 2024, reproaching it for the months of previous violations and supreme leader of its arms support and ideological reference, Iran. Netanyahu reacted by ordering powerful bombings in different parts of the country and invading the south, where troops have been expelling the population and blowing up houses, factories and bridges. The simile was used by Defense Minister Israel Katz himself.
Merit
The rumor about a possible cessation of hostilities has opened a dispute in Lebanon over the merits between the Government and Hezbollah. The Executive links it with its brave – because it is unpopular among many nationals – decision to initiate the first high-level contact with Israel, on Tuesday. Iran and its ally Hezbollah, on the other hand, see it as the result of pressure on the United States in negotiations for a regional truce, Tehran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and Hezbollah’s armed action to stop the Israeli invasion, killing 13 soldiers. Ibrahim Moussawi, deputy of Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc, expressed this to the Reuters agency. Also Nabih Berri, president of the Lebanese Parliament and leader of the Shiite Amal formation, an ally of Hezbollah, and Mohamad Bagher Ghalibaf, the Iranian leader in charge of negotiations with Washington.
The Israeli authorities announced weeks ago their willingness to control a border strip that extends at least ten kilometers into Lebanese territory, and assure that they will remain in the area indefinitely and independently of the truce.
With the ceasefire on the horizon, the Israeli military commanders made three requests to the political sphere, as reported this Thursday by the newspaper Yediot Aharonot. The first was to establish a “buffer zone” in southern Lebanon up to the Litani River, which even reaches 30 kilometers from the border.
The other two are the beginning of a long-term process to disarm Hezbollah under a US supervision mechanism, and a free hand to the army to “eliminate threats, including north of the Litani River”, such as the one that Netanyahu has suggested and had since 2024, despite the ceasefire.
Israel then obtained freedom of action from the White House to attack what it considers threats and wants to retain it. That carte blanche led residents of southern Lebanon to feel that the war had never ended. And it allowed Israel to keep empty a border strip that it now occupies again and where a group of experts from the UN Human Rights Office denounced on Wednesday signs of ethnic cleansing against the Shiite Muslim population, in which Hezbollah has its main support.
The Israeli army had already multiplied its activity in the south in recent hours. Troops have bombed the Qasmiye bridge, the only operational one over the Litani, disconnecting the south from the rest of the country. It is the third time he has done it since the beginning of March, when he began to destroy the steps. Israel presents it as a military operation to prevent the movement of Hezbollah forces towards the border region, but humanitarian groups predict a catastrophe for the population in the southern area, where the United Nations estimates that more than 100,000 civilians remain.
Videos of controlled explosions of civilian infrastructure have also multiplied, which may constitute a war crime, according to international humanitarian law. Some, spread by the soldiers themselves.
Israeli troops were also fighting this Thursday with Hezbollah militiamen to take control of Dibbine, a municipality on the road that Netanyahu pointed out to them on Tuesday. The Israeli prime minister ordered the expansion of the occupation towards the foothills of Mount Hermon, towards the Syrian territories that Israel occupied, first in the 1967 Six-Day War, and then in 2024, after the fall of Bashar El Assad’s government.
