What both sides say about the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Lebanese Hezbollah

A ceasefire agreement that could end more than a year of cross-border fighting between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah won support from Israeli leaders on Tuesday, raising hopes and renewing difficult questions in the conflict-torn region.

Hezbollah leaders also signaled tentative support for a U.S.-brokered deal that gives both sides an escape from hostilities that have driven more than 1.2 million Lebanese and 50,000 Israelis from their homes.

Intense Israeli bombing has killed more than 3,700 people, many of them civilians, Lebanese officials say. More than 130 people died on the Israeli side.

But while the agreement, which is scheduled to come into force on Wednesday, could significantly ease tensions that have inflamed the region, it does little directly to resolve the far deadlier war that has raged in Gaza since Hamas attacked southern Israel in October 2023, in which killed 1,200 people.

Hezbollah, which the next day began firing dozens of rockets into Israel in support of Hamas, had earlier said it would fight until the fighting in Gaza ended. With the new ceasefire, it withdrew from this commitment, effectively leaving Hamas isolated and fighting the war alone.

Here’s what you need to know about the tentative ceasefire agreement and its potential consequences:

Terms of the contract

The agreement reportedly calls for a 60-day halt to fighting that would see Israeli troops withdraw to their side of the border, while also requiring Hezbollah to end its armed presence in a large swath of southern Lebanon. President Joe Biden said Tuesday that the agreement would go into effect at 4 a.m. local time on Wednesday (9 p.m. EST on Tuesday).

Under the agreement, thousands of Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers are to be deployed to the region south of the Litani River. A U.S.-led international panel would monitor compliance by all parties. Biden said the agreement “was intended to bring about a permanent cessation of hostilities.”

Israel demanded the right to act if Hezbollah violated its obligations. Lebanese officials refused to include this in the application. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that the military would attack Hezbollah if the U.N. peacekeeping force, known as UNIFILdoes not enforce the contract.

Continued uncertainty

The Hezbollah leader said the group’s support for the deal depends on clarity that Israel will not renew attacks.

“After reviewing the agreement signed by the hostile government, we will check whether there is consistency between what we have declared and what Lebanese officials have agreed,” Mahmoud Qamati, vice chairman of Hezbollah’s political council, told Al Jazeera, a Qatari satellite news station.

“We, of course, want an end to aggression, but not at the expense of the sovereignty of the state” of Lebanon, he said.

The European Union’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, said Tuesday that the agreement, also brokered by France, took into account Israel’s security concerns. Hezbollah indicated that this would give a chance to the ceasefire pact.

Where the fighting left both sides

After months of cross-border bombing, Israel is poised to score major victories, including the killing of Hezbollah’s supreme leader, Hassan Nasrallah, most of his senior commanders and the destruction of the militants’ extensive infrastructure.

A complex attack in September that included the explosion of hundreds of walkie-talkies and pagers used by Hezbollah was widely attributed to Israel, signaling the militant group’s extraordinary penetration.

The damage done to Hezbollah affects not only its ranks but also the reputation it built by fighting Israel to a stalemate in the 2006 war. Still, its fighters managed to put up stiff resistance on the ground, slowing Israel’s advance while firing dozens of rockets, missiles and drones across the border every day.

The ceasefire provides relief to both sides, resting Israel’s overstretched military and allowing Hezbollah’s leaders to tout the group’s effectiveness in holding ground despite Israel’s overwhelming military superiority. However, the group is likely to face a reckoning as many Lebanese accuse it of tying their country’s fate to Gaza’s in the service of key ally Iran, inflicting enormous damage to the Lebanese economy, which was already in serious shape.

No answer for Gaza

So far, Hezbollah has insisted that it will only stop attacking Israel once it agrees to stop fighting in Gaza. Some in the region are likely to view the agreement between the Lebanon-based group and Israel as a surrender.

In Gaza, where officials say the war has killed more than 44,000 Palestinians, Israeli attacks have inflicted massive losses on Hamas, including the deaths of the group’s top leaders. However, Hamas militants continue to hold dozens of Israeli hostages, giving the militant group a bargaining chip if indirect ceasefire negotiations resume.

Hamas will likely continue to demand a lasting truce and a complete Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip as part of any such agreement, while Netanyahu on Tuesday reiterated his commitment to continue the war until Hamas is destroyed and all hostages are released.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, whose forces were driven from the Gaza Strip by Hamas in 2007 and who hopes to one day rule the territory again as part of an independent Palestinian state, on Tuesday strongly recalled the impossibility of resolving the war, demanding an urgent international intervention.

“The only way to stop the dangerous escalation we are witnessing in the region and to maintain regional and international stability, security and peace is to resolve the Palestinian issue,” he said in a speech to the United Nations read by his ambassador.