A Plan to End the Israel-Hezbollah War

On October 30, 2024, Israeli state-owned broadcaster Kan published a ceasefire proposal drafted by the United States to end the fighting between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah. Washington’s diplomatic push looked like a longshot only weeks ago, yet it may succeed. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to the plan “in principle” over the weekend and the Israeli cabinet will reportedly vote on it as soon as November 26.

The draft proposes a 60-day implementation period during which Hezbollah and the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) would observe a ceasefire. The Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) would gradually deploy 10,000 troops to southern Lebanon and would be responsible for monitoring the Israel-Lebanon border and all Lebanese land, sea and air crossings against the smuggling of illicit weapons. The LAF would also dismantle all non-state military infrastructure between the Litani River (some 30 kilometers from the Israeli-Lebanese border) and the (approximately 5 kilometer-deep) Israeli-occupied stretch of southern Lebanon.

The U.S., Israel and Lebanon would establish a “monitoring and enforcement mechanism” to address ceasefire violations, which would also include the United Nations and European and regional countries as guarantors. The mechanism would punish ceasefire violations, for example, through sanctions. At the end of the 60-day implementation period, the IDF would withdraw from Lebanon. The U.S. and UN would facilitate Israel-Lebanon negotiations to achieve, finally, the full implementation of UN Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 1701 of 2006, which prohibits Hezbollah from infiltrating south of the Litani River, as it has done for 18 years.

As part of the diplomatic push to reduce conflict, the U.S. agreed to give Israel a side letter with assurances of American support for Israeli military action if the LAF or United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) failed to meet their obligations. The side letter also allows for Israeli intelligence flights over Lebanon. The letter is essential. Israel cannot end the war without achieving three goals: dismantling Hezbollah’s military infrastructure all the way to the Litani River, enforcing its withdrawal beyond the Litani River, and stopping the smuggling of weapons from Iran through Iraq and Syria.

Because the Lebanese government and the LAF may not be able to enforce such an agreement should Hezbollah decide to breach it again, for Israel, this side letter represents the core of the agreement. Put plainly, it means that the U.S. will allow Israel the proverbial “license to kill” to enforce the terms of the deal. Without it, no Israeli refugee from Galilee will return home. However, the side letter requests that Israel consult the U.S. before opening fire in Lebanon.

Additionally, refugees from Galilee are calling on the Israeli government to include a clause in the ceasefire proposal that would prevent Lebanese refugees from the first line of villages along the border to return home. In the past, residents of those areas allowed Hezbollah to turn their villages into launch pads for attacks on Israel and they may do so again. Hezbollah, for its part, would reject such a clause.

Unsurprisingly, Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati, who has been supporting a return to Resolution 1701 since the first days of the war, has been optimistic. On October 30, he opined that a deal could be announced “in the coming hours or days.”

What was surprising was the absence of protests against the proposal in the Lebanese media. On November 6, Hezbollah’s new secretary-general, Naim Qassem announced: “There is a path for negotiations that we have clearly defined – indirect negotiations through the Lebanese state and Speaker [of Parliament Nabih] Berri.” Mr. Qassem said that any agreement must guarantee “the protection of Lebanese sovereignty in full, without anything missing.”

Mr. Berri emphasized that the agreement must adhere strictly to Resolution 1701. This stance marks a departure from the legacy of Hassan Nasrallah, the late secretary-general of Hezbollah assassinated by Israel in September. Unlike Nasrallah, who opposed a Lebanese-Israeli ceasefire while the war in Gaza persists, both Mr. Qassem and Mr. Berri suggest readiness for a separate Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire.

The negotiations, however, are difficult. The primary reason for the diplomatic stalemate is that the Lebanese negotiators see the side letter allowing Israeli “direct enforcement” as a breach of Lebanese sovereignty. Israel, for its part, could not agree to withdraw from the narrow stretch of Lebanese territory that it occupied without such a letter. As the Israelis see things, no Israeli government can trust the LAF and UNIFIL to disarm Hezbollah and prevent it from rebuilding its positions on the border.

The Lebanese side also demands that upon completing the agreement, the IDF would release all Hezbollah fighters detained in southern Lebanon. Will Israel demand the release of at least some of the Israeli hostages in Gaza in exchange? Likewise, Lebanon insists on an immediate Israeli withdrawal once the agreement is signed, and the return home of all southern refugees, rather than waiting for 60 days.

This is an indication of the great pressure from Shia families on Hezbollah to end the war. Finally, while both sides agree that an American general will head the “monitoring mechanism,” the Lebanese demand some Arab participation and object to British and German involvement. Israel, for its part, objects to any French representation in the monitoring mechanism.

Nevertheless, the two fighting sides are not back at square one. This time, an Israeli-Lebanese ceasefire is no longer contingent on an end to the war in Gaza. This separation of the fronts in negotiations is essential both for Hezbollah and Israel.

Thus, the situation in southern Lebanon, for now, is a draw. When it invaded southern Lebanon, Israel chose to dismantle or destroy Hezbollah’s infrastructure, not the enemy itself. Rather than conducting a blitzkrieg into southern Lebanon to trap thousands of Hezbollah fighters and seize much territory, as Israel did in 1956, 1967 and 1973 in the Sinai, and, in 1982, less successfully in Lebanon, the IDF has far more limited goals this time. It aims to deny Hezbollah both direct-aim targets on the Israeli side as well as the ability to launch cross-border commando raids into Israel.

To achieve these goals, the IDF destroyed Hezbollah positions and its underground complex throughout a cordon sanitaire, or buffer zone, roughly three to five kilometers deep all along the border. Israel’s overarching desire is to reach a diplomatic agreement that would guarantee that Hezbollah will be unable to return.

By early November, the IDF reported to the Israeli government that the tactical goals had been achieved and that the time had come for the diplomatic phase to begin. The IDF and the Israeli government would both be happy to end the Lebanese war if diplomacy would guarantee that Hezbollah could not return. Hezbollah, however, has different plans.

While anticipating an Israeli ground offensive, Hezbollah decided to allow Israel to occupy a few kilometers of southern Lebanese territory. They paid with territory, but they believe that it is only temporary, as Israel will be unable to block their way back. They paid also with the IDF discovering huge caches of expensive weaponry, much of it Russian, and seeing their costly tunnels made inoperable. Yet they believe that Iran will replenish all that was lost. In the meantime, Hezbollah is forcing Israel to pay the price of limited but very painful casualties.

Hezbollah says it is ready to withdraw to the Litani River according to Resolution 1701, as it did in 2006. However, they cannot agree to any Israeli (or international) barrier that will block their return to the border areas. Israeli intelligence-gathering flights over Lebanese territory and its “license to kill” are precisely such barriers.

The two options for resolution are starkly different, though both are possible.

When confronted with a question about what would be the way to end hostilities, Mr. Qassem offered an answer: “I will tell you very clearly,” he said. “Our conviction is that only one thing can stop this war of aggression, and that is the battlefield.”

In conventional military terms, Hezbollah has been defeated. Its main line of defense was breached. Israel can take Beirut at will. Some 80 percent of its heavy weapons have been destroyed. Its long-time leader, Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, as well as nine other members of its 12-member leading Jihad Council, are dead. Israel can very likely kill the remaining two, but it needs someone to sign to (or accept) the agreement. Six out of Hezbollah’s seven brigade commanders, and most of its battalion commanders too are dead. The Israeli Air Force dominates Lebanon’s sky.

Yet, Hezbollah can fight on because it is an ideological militia, representing a minority that hides behind the Lebanese state and controls it. Israel is choosing not to fight the Lebanese state, or even the Shia community as such. Air and sea ports, fuel reservoirs, electric stations, water systems and bridges are out of bounds for Israeli strikes. The Israeli approach is that of a doctor treating Lebanon as a patient suffering from terminal Hezbollah cancer. It is trying to kill the cancer and save the patient. By comparison, in Yemen Israel believes that the Houthi cancer became the state, hence the two bombings of Hodeida harbor. This generous approach to Lebanon is questionable. This war may well be perceived as being between two states because, by remaining aloof, the Lebanese army is allowing Hezbollah to operate freely. Militarily speaking, as long as Israel sticks to this strategy, Hezbollah can more easily continue fighting.

In the absence of a ceasefire, Israel may decide that, to apply more pressure on Hezbollah, the IDF must go deeper, perhaps all the way to the Litani River, some 30 kilometers from the border. In addition to international condemnation, the risk of such deeper penetration is that Israel will sustain heavy losses and then its troops will be exposed to dangerous guerilla warfare.

Either way, if Hezbollah refuses diplomacy, the Israeli Air Force will continue to attack all over Lebanon, including in Beirut. The IDF is careful to attack only Hezbollah military targets, but there have still been civilian casualties, and when citizens are warned to keep a distance, many are displaced and become refugees. By mid-November there were already over one million Shia refugees. They are in daily touch with their sons, some of them Hezbollah fighters. Some 200,000 refugees have travelled as far as southern Iraq, causing concern in Kuwait. While this does apply more pressure on Hezbollah, it also damages Israel’s international standing. And Hezbollah will continue to attack both military and civilian targets in Israel all the way to Tel Aviv.

Somewhat more likely, though, are two months of a ceasefire during which further negotiations under U.S. leadership will take place, perhaps even before the changing of the guard in the White House. Such a ceasefire will mainly benefit Hezbollah. They are under more significant pressure and badly need a pause. Israel prefers to conduct negotiations while under fire, but it may accept a ceasefire.

Yet even in such a case, for Israel there is a silver lining: A separate Lebanese-Israeli ceasefire will demonstrate a weakening of the so-called “Resistance Front,” the united Iranian-Hezbollah-Houthi-Iraqi front against Israel.

What are the chances of such an agreement? Israel is interested in an end to the war. Hezbollah is keen on a long pause. Iran has not stopped Hezbollah from negotiating a deal with Israel separately from Hamas in Gaza. This, apparently, is for two reasons. First, Iran now has new respect for Israeli capabilities and in their eyes, a ceasefire will save Hezbollah from total defeat and enable them to rebuild. However, as Iran sees it, Resolution 1701 cannot be changed. Boosting it will prevent Hezbollah’s return to the Israeli border and weapons smuggling from Syria, preventing Hezbollah’s reconstruction. But because Israel cannot accept Resolution 1701 unless it is enhanced, this means that the Iranians are only halfway there.

Second, a ceasefire will make it easier for Tehran to explain why it is not retaliating for the Israeli October 26 retaliation. This Israeli Air Force attack caused substantial damage to Iranian military targets. Tehran promised to retaliate but it has not. A diplomatic solution is feasible: Because an American side letter to Israel is not part of the Israeli-Lebanese agreement, Hezbollah is not obliged to recognize it. The organization’s leaders might still authorize Mr. Berri and Lebanese Prime Minister Mikati to declare that they are not bound by the side letter, which would enable them to sign the agreement.

However, if Hezbollah remains a heavily armed organization, the diplomatic agreement, as welcome as it will be, will only mark the start of the race to prepare for the next war.

Indeed, Hezbollah’s long-term intents were phrased succinctly by their main newspaper. On November 20 Ibrahim al-Amin, Director of the Board of Governors of al-Akhbar, wrote: “Supporting an agreement that will stop the (Israeli) war machine is our duty. However, this is (also) our right and duty to say clearly that Israel will continue to be the enemy whose existence must be eliminated.”

Both Israel and most Lebanese people are therefore interested in a far more ambitious solution: the disarming of Hezbollah. That would represent the full implementation of UNSC Resolutions 1559 (2004) and 1701. However, in the face of strong objection from both Hezbollah and Iran, there is no certainty that it can be done.

Still, due to Hezbollah’s current weakness and the calamity that it has unleashed on Lebanon and mainly on its own Shia community, there may be a way. Following more than two years of political anti-Hezbollah strife, in the 2022 general elections, Hezbollah and its allies lost their majority in the Lebanese parliament. Now, neither side has the two-thirds majority needed to elect a new president. In Lebanon, the president has vast authority, but the country has been without a president since October 2022.

Since then, there has been only a caretaker government in Lebanon. Like in parliament, within this government, too, there is a balance between Hezbollah’s coalition and its Lebanese opponents. Currently the government is unable to disarm Hezbollah even if one or two cabinet ministers were to change political affiliations. This is because the 2008 Doha Agreement imposed a rule on Lebanon that a third of the cabinet can veto any decision. The country’s government is therefore paralyzed. But with Hezbollah’s decline, some of the group’s supporters in parliament have already changed sides. Druze leader Walid Jumblatt publicly rejected Iranian diplomats’ requests for a meeting. He said: “It is about time that the Islamic Republic (of Iran) will know that there is a state in Lebanon.”

The Christian “Free Patriotic Movement” (FPM) party that has 17 out of 128 seats in parliament changed sides even more clearly. Gebran Bassil, head of the FPM, announced on November 12 that his party was no longer in alliance with Hezbollah. In scathing remarks against the Iran-backed party to the al-Arabiya television channel, he said Hezbollah had relinquished Lebanon’s claim to self-defense when it opened the “support front” for Hamas in Gaza on October 8, 2023.

A two-thirds parliamentary vote can elect a new and independent president, who can repeal the 2008 Doha rule. That would create an effective executive. The government and president could then legislate the disarmament of Hezbollah according to the two relevant UN resolutions.

The way to persuade parliamentarians to change sides is, first and foremost, to guarantee their personal safety. Much more broadly, as the head of an international coalition, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia should offer Lebanon a Marshall Plan, provided that anti-corruption steps kick in. Such an offer would meet with wide public support in Lebanon, and consent may even be found among the country’s Shia population. The year-long war has created up to 200,000 refugees in Israel and five times more among the Shia of Lebanon.

Between 2019 and 2023, Hezbollah’s Iran-financed socioeconomic system managed to insulate the organization and its support base, the Shia community, from the ravages of the catastrophic collapse of the Lebanese economy, but no longer. No one in Lebanon will initiate a new civil war, and Hezbollah – still – has the big guns. However, as Prince Talleyrand, Napoleon’s foreign minister, famously observed, “You can do many things with bayonets except sit on them.” In his last two months in the White House, if he strikes the iron when it is hot, President Joe Biden may still be able to make a diplomatic solution a reality.