BEIRUT: A fragile ceasefire between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah has held up for over a month, even as its terms seem unlikely to be met by the agreed-upon deadline.
The deal struck on Nov. 27 to halt the war required Hezbollah to immediately lay down its arms in southern Lebanon and gave Israel 60 days to withdraw its forces there and hand over control to the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers.
So far, Israel has withdrawn from just two of the dozens of towns it holds in southern Lebanon. And it has continued striking what it says are bases belonging to Hezbollah, which it accuses of attempting to launch rockets and move weapons before they can be confiscated and destroyed.
Hezbollah, which was severely diminished during nearly 14 months of war, has threatened to resume fighting if Israel does not fully withdraw its forces by the 60-day deadline.
Yet despite accusations from both sides about hundreds of ceasefire violations, the truce is likely to hold, analysts say. That is good news for thousands of Israeli and Lebanese families displaced by the war still waiting to return home.
“The ceasefire agreement is rather opaque and open to interpretation,” said Firas Maksad, a senior fellow with the Middle East Institute in Washington. That flexibility, he said, may give it a better chance of holding in the face of changing circumstances, including the ouster of Syria’s longtime leader, Bashar Assad, just days after the ceasefire took effect.
With Assad gone, Hezbollah lost a vital route for smuggling weapons from Iran. While that further weakened Hezbollah’s hand, Israel had already agreed to the US-brokered ceasefire.
Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel on Oct. 8, 2023 – the day after Hamas launched a deadly attack into Israel that ignited the ongoing war in Gaza. Since then, Israeli air and ground assaults have killed more than 4,000 people in Lebanon, including hundreds of civilians. At the height of the war, more than 1 million Lebanese people were displaced.
Hezbollah rockets forced some 60,000 from their homes in northern Israel, and killed 76 people in Israel, including 31 soldiers. Almost 50 Israeli soldiers were killed during operations inside Lebanon.
Here’s a look at the terms of the ceasefire and its prospects for ending hostilities over the long-term.
What does the ceasefire agreement say?
The agreement says that both Hezbollah and Israel will halt “offensive” military actions, but that they can act in self-defense, although it is not entirely clear how that term may be interpreted.
The Lebanese army is tasked with preventing Hezbollah and other militant groups from launching attacks into Israel. It is also required to dismantle Hezbollah facilities and weapons in southern Lebanon – activities that might eventually be expanded to the rest of Lebanon, although it is not explicit in the ceasefire agreement.
The United States, France, Israel, Lebanon and the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, are responsible for overseeing implementation of the agreement.
“The key question is not whether the deal will hold, but what version of it will be implemented,” Maksad, the analyst, said.
Is the ceasefire being implemented?
Hezbollah has for the most part halted its rocket and drone fire into Israel, and Israel has stopped attacking Hezbollah in most areas of Lebanon. But Israel has launched regular airstrikes on what it says are militant sites in southern Lebanon and in the Bekaa Valley.
Israeli forces have so far withdrawn from two towns in southern Lebanon – Khiam and Shamaa. They remain in some 60 others, according to the International Organization for Migration, and around 160,000 Lebanese remain displaced.
Lebanon has accused Israel of repeatedly violating the ceasefire agreement and last week submitted a complaint to the UN Security Council that says Israel launched some 816 “ground and air attacks” between the start of the ceasefire and Dec. 22, 2023.
The complaint said the attacks have hindered the Lebanese army’s efforts to deploy in the south and uphold its end of the ceasefire agreement.
Israel says Hezbollah has violated the ceasefire hundreds of times and has also complained to the Security Council. It accused Hezbollah militants of moving ammunition, attempting to attack Israeli soldiers, and preparing and launching rockets toward northern Israel, among other things.
Until it hands over control of more towns to the Lebanese army, Israeli troops have been destroying Hezbollah infrastructure, including weapons warehouses and underground tunnels. Lebanese authorities say Israel has also destroyed civilian houses and infrastructure.
What happens after the ceasefire has been in place for 60 days?
Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanese towns has been slower than anticipated because of a lack of Lebanese army troops ready to take over, according to Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, a military spokesman. Lebanon disputes this, and says it is waiting for Israel to withdraw before entering the towns.
Shoshani said Israel is satisfied with the Lebanese army’s control of the areas it has already withdrawn from, and that while it would prefer a faster transfer of power, security is its most important objective.
Israel does not consider the 60-day timetable for withdrawal to be “sacred,” said Harel Chorev, an expert on Israel-Lebanon relations at Tel Aviv University who estimates that Lebanon will need to recruit and deploy thousands more troops before Israel will be ready to hand over control.
Hezbollah officials have said that if Israeli forces remain in Lebanon 60 days past the start of the ceasefire, the militant group might return to attacking them. But Hezbollah Secretary General Naim Kassem said Wednesday that, for now, the group is holding off to give the Lebanese state a chance to “take responsibility” for enforcing the agreement.
Over the final two months of the war, Hezbollah suffered major blows to its leadership, weapons and forces from a barrage of Israeli airstrikes, and a ground invasion that led to fierce battles in southern Lebanon. The fall of Assad was another big setback.
“The power imbalance suggests Israel may want to ensure greater freedom of action after the 60-day period,” Maksad, the analyst, said. And Hezbollah, in its weakened position, now has a “strong interest” in making sure the deal doesn’t fall apart altogether “despite Israeli violations,” he said.
While Hezbollah may not be in a position to return to open war with Israel, it or other groups could mount guerilla attacks using light weaponry if Israeli troops remain in southern Lebanon, said former Lebanese army Gen. Hassan Jouni. And even if Israel does withdraw all of its ground forces, Jouni said, the Israeli military could could continue to carry out sporadic airstrikes in Lebanon, much as it has done in Syria for years.

GENEVA: UN experts have denounced Israel’s raid on an embattled hospital in northern Gaza, demanding an end to the “blatant assault” on health rights in the besieged Palestinian territory.
Reiterating charges that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, two independent UN rights experts said they were “horrified” by the raid last Friday on Kamal Adwan, northern Gaza’s last functioning major hospital.
“For well over a year into the genocide, Israel’s blatant assault on the right to health in Gaza and the rest of the occupied Palestinian territory is plumbing new depths of impunity,” the experts said.
The joint statement was from Francesca Albanese, the independent UN special rapporteur on the rights situation in the Palestinian territories, and Tlaleng Mofokeng, the special rapporteur on the right to health.

Israel’s diplomatic mission in Geneva dismissed the statement as “far removed from the truth,” saying it “completely ignores critical facts and the broader context of Hamas’s exploitation of civilian infrastructure for military purposes.”
The Israeli military has repeatedly accused Hamas of using hospitals as command centers, something Hamas denies.
The military “undertook every effort to protect civilians,” the Israeli mission said, insisting its “actions highlight Israel’s commitment to international law and the protection of civilian infrastructure, even under the most challenging circumstances.”
Israel’s military said it had killed more than 20 suspected militants and detained more than 240, including the hospital’s director, Hossam Abu Safiyeh, describing him as a suspected Hamas militant.
In their statement, Albanese and Mofokeng said they were “gravely concerned” at Safiyeh’s detention and demanded his “immediate release.”
“Yet another doctor to be harassed, kidnapped, and arbitrarily detained by the occupation forces,” they said.
“This is part of a pattern by Israel to continuously bombard, destroy, and fully annihilate the realization of the right to health in Gaza.”
UN special rapporteurs are independent experts appointed by the UN Human Rights Council but do not speak on behalf of the world body.
The experts also highlighted “disturbing reports” that Israeli forces had allegedly carried out extrajudicial executions of some people near the hospitals, including a Palestinian man reportedly holding a white flag.
They pointed to figures provided by the Health Ministry in Gaza indicating that at least 1,057 Palestinian health and medical professionals have been killed since the war erupted following the Palestinian group’s Oct. 7, 2023 attack inside Israel.
The World Health Organization has repeatedly denounced the high number of attacks on health care staff and facilities in the war: 1,273 attacks on health care in Gaza and the West Bank have been recorded since the start of the war.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned on X that the pace of desperately needed medical evacuations out of Gaza was “excruciatingly slow.”
“Only 5,383 patients have been evacuated with support from WHO since October 2023, of which only 436 since the Rafah crossing was closed” last May, he said.
He said more than 12,000 people were awaiting medical evacuation from Gaza.
“At this rate, it would take 5-10 years to evacuate all these critically ill patients, including thousands of children,” he added.
“In the meantime, their conditions get worse and some die.”