TEL AVIV: Israeli aircraft struck Hezbollah weapons smuggling sites along Syria’s border with Lebanon, the Israeli military said Saturday, testing a fragile, days-old ceasefire that halted months of fighting between the sides but has seen continued sporadic fire.
The military said it struck sites that had been used to smuggle weapons from Syria to Lebanon after the ceasefire took effect, which the military said was a violation of its terms. There was no immediate comment from Syrian authorities or activists monitoring the conflict in that country. Hezbollah also did not immediately comment.
The Israeli strike, the latest of several since the ceasefire began on Wednesday, came as unrest spread to other areas of the Middle East, with Syrian insurgents breaching the country’s largest city, Aleppo, in a shock offensive that added fresh uncertainty to a region reeling from multiple wars.
The truce between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah, brokered by the United States and France, calls for an initial two-month ceasefire in which the militants are to withdraw north of Lebanon’s Litani River and Israeli forces are to return to their side of the border.
The repeated bursts of violence — with no reports of serious casualties — reflected the uneasy nature of the ceasefire that otherwise appeared to hold. While Israel has accused Hezbollah of violating the ceasefire, Lebanon has also accused Israel of the same in the days since it took effect.
Many Lebanese, some of the 1.2 million displaced in the conflict, were streaming south to their homes, despite warnings by the Israeli and Lebanese militaries to stay away from certain areas.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported that an Israeli drone attacked a car in the southern village of Majdal Zoun. The agency said there had been casualties but gave no further details. Majdal Zoun, near the Mediterranean Sea, is close to where Israeli troops still have a presence.
The military said earlier Saturday that its forces, who remain in southern Lebanon until they withdraw gradually over the 60-day period, had been operating to distance “suspects” in the region, without elaborating, and said troops had located and seized weapons found hidden in a mosque.
Israel says it reserves the right under the ceasefire to strike against any perceived violations. Israel has made returning the tens of thousands of displaced Israelis home the goal of the war with Hezbollah but Israelis, concerned Hezbollah was not deterred and could still attack northern communities, have been apprehensive about returning home.
Hezbollah began attacking Israel on Oct. 8, 2023, in solidarity with the Palestinian militant group Hamas and its assault on southern Israel the day before. Israel and Hezbollah kept up a low-level conflict of cross-border fire for nearly a year, until Israel escalated its fight with a sophisticated attack that detonated hundreds of pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah fighters. It followed that up with an intense aerial bombardment campaign against Hezbollah assets, killing many of its top leaders including longtime chief Hassan Nasrallah, and it launched a ground invasion in early October.
More than 3,760 people have been killed by Israeli fire in Lebanon during the conflict, many of them civilians, according to Lebanese health officials. The fighting killed more than 70 people in Israel — over half of them civilians — as well as dozens of Israeli soldiers fighting in southern Lebanon.

CHICAGO/LONDON: As a fragile ceasefire in Lebanon meant to stop the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah enters its fifth day, experts have cast doubt on its sustainability, the region’s future stability and the role of international justice in holding leaders accountable for alleged war crimes.

To complicate matters, a surprise attack on Aleppo, a city in neighboring Syria, by militant groups on Thursday breached a five-year-long truce, reigniting a long-running civil war with an intensity not seen in years.

The most serious challenge to the government of President Bashar Assad in years, the assault has raised questions about whether non-state actors are trying to take advantage of weakness of the so-called Axis of Resistance alliance resulting from setbacks suffered by Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Appearing on “The Ray Hanania Radio Show” this week, Arab American Institute founder James Zogby and international law expert Brad Roth offered insights into the Lebanon ceasefire agreement and its broader geopolitical implications.

The ceasefire, announced earlier this week, comes after months of intense fighting in southern Lebanon and Gaza. While it has brought temporary relief, the terms appear to favor Israel, with critics warning of its instability as the two factions “remaining fully equipped” to strike.

Zogby described the deal as “one-sided,” noting that Israel retains significant freedom to act unilaterally. “The US and France were pushing (for the ceasefire), but the terms of the deal are Israel’s terms,” Zogby said.

The truce, brokered by the US and France, revisits the framework of UN Resolution 1701, enacted 18 years ago. According to US President Joe Biden, the agreement is intended to establish a “permanent cessation of hostilities.” It calls for Israel to withdraw its forces from southern Lebanon and limits armed groups in the area to the Lebanese military and UN peacekeeping forces.

However, the updated terms grant Israel extensive leeway. A “reformulated and enhanced” mechanism, chaired by the US, allows Israel to strike Hezbollah arms shipments, a clause that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described as ensuring “full freedom of military action” with Washington’s backing.

Meanwhile, the US has pledged to rearm Israel, restoring its military capacity to pre-war levels.

“I don’t think we have a ceasefire in the real sense of a ceasefire. It’s not two teams agreeing to stop. There’s one team saying: ‘we gotta stop.’ That’s Lebanon. The other team is saying: ‘We’re going to continue if we need to and the way we want to’,” Zogby said, suggesting that Israel’s insistence on the ceasefire was partly driven by internal challenges.

“I think there’s another reason why Israel wanted this now, and that is that their troops are exhausted,” he said. “They’ve been fighting new fronts. Israel’s never fought a war this long. They’re already experiencing suicides and other forms of post-traumatic shock syndrome.”

Yet, Zogby warned that Israel’s military dominance remains unchecked. “The US has created a monster which has incredible offensive capability and no restraint. None. I used to compare Israel and the Palestinians to the spoiled child and the abused child. Israel’s the spoiled child with unlimited destructive capability, and that’s dangerous.”

In his Tuesday night announcement of the ceasefire, Netanyahu described Israel’s military campaign as “victorious” on all seven fronts — Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, Syria and Iran — claiming it aimed to weaken adversaries and reshape the region. However, experts view his push to expand the war as a strategy to bolster his hold on power amid a corruption trial in which he is set to testify on Dec. 10, and to obscure the true focus of the conflict: Gaza.

“Lebanon never was the main arena. It’s always been about the conquest of the land of Palestine for them,” Zogby said, criticizing US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s remarks on Hezbollah’s role in Gaza, who claimed the war in Gaza lasted so long because “Hamas was counting on Hezbollah’s cavalry.

“And I thought, ‘how dumb, how blindsided, how short-sighted, rather, can he be that he thinks that what’s going on in Gaza is Hamas holding out for Hezbollah to rescue them. This has always been about Israel destroying Hamas and the US supporting them in that. There’s never been a desire for a ceasefire or a peace agreement,” he said.

Zogby also highlighted Lebanon’s internal struggles following the conflict. With more than 1.2 million Lebanese displaced, primarily Shiite Muslims, tensions have escalated as they relocate to areas dominated by other sectarian groups. “The country, after all, has been on the brink for a long time,” Zogby said, pointing to the ceasefire’s terms, which critics say works in Israel’s favor.

Hezbollah’s decision to open a southern front in support of Gaza had drawn significant criticism within Lebanon. Many argued it exacerbated the nation’s economic and political crises, deepening divisions and compounding the devastation. While the ceasefire has provided a fleeting sense of relief, displaced Shiite residents, unable to return to their ruined homes, question what, if anything, was gained from the war.

For Hezbollah, this raises existential challenges. Critics contend that its ability to mobilize support — long reliant on weapons, financial sway and promises of deterrence — has been severely weakened, leaving its future influence in the region uncertain.

The ceasefire coincides with the International Criminal Court’s move to issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu, former Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant and Hamas commander Mohammed Deif, accusing them of war crimes and crimes against humanity. However, the likelihood of these leaders facing justice remains slim, given Israel’s refusal to recognize the ICC’s jurisdiction.

Brad Roth, a professor of law at Wayne State University and an expert on international justice, outlined the challenges confronting the ICC. “In principle, if US forces commit war crimes or plausibly alleged to commit war crimes within the territory of a state that is either party to the ICC statute or has conferred specialty jurisdiction over the situation, then US forces can be subject to the jurisdiction of the ICC,” he said.

“The US has always objected to that, but they have never had very good grounds for objecting to it. And, of course, Israel as well is not a party and denies that Palestine is a state and, therefore, denies that Palestine has the legal capacity to confer jurisdiction over these territories to the ICC.”

He added that most legal experts agree Palestine satisfies the criteria for ICC jurisdiction.

The ICC, established through the Rome Statute in the late 1990s and operational since 2002, was designed to prosecute individuals for crimes such as genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. However, its jurisdiction excludes major powers like the US, Israel, Russia and China, creating significant gaps in its authority. “It’s a sort of Swiss cheese here in terms of what it covers,” Roth said.

He highlighted that ICC member states are legally obligated to enforce arrest warrants, though enforcement often hinges on domestic politics rather than legal principles. “Then the question of whether the problem is that a state may be bound by the treaty to engage in the arrest and may be bound by customary international law to not engage in the arrest. And those domestic courts would have to deal with that question, and how that would come out is anyone’s guess,” he said.

Adding to the complexity, French officials reportedly agreed to oversee the ceasefire’s implementation only after securing assurances that ICC warrants against Israeli leaders would not be enforced. Roth attributed this to the ICC’s reliance on US funding and support, which complicates its willingness to pursue cases against US allies.

“For that, you can draw your own conclusions about why it is that a body, so heavily dependent on US support and funding and assistance with investigation and so forth, might be reluctant to take action against the US,” he said.

The US role in shielding Israel from international accountability has drawn criticism, particularly during the Gaza war. While the Biden administration has framed its unwavering support for Israel as essential for regional security, critics argue this stance exacerbates instability.

Zogby cautioned that continued backing of Israel’s military campaigns risks undermining long-term peace efforts, as evidenced by the resurgence of fighting in Syria.

According to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor, the militants, mainly from the Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, took control of “more than half of Aleppo” within hours on Friday without encountering any resistance from Syrian government forces. The official Syrian media challenged this narrative and claimed to have captured groups of “terrorists.”

While the ceasefire has brought a temporary halt to the violence in Lebanon, the road ahead remains uncertain, particularly on issues related to justice and accountability.

To Roth, the ICC’s efforts to hold Israeli leaders accountable may exemplify the broader difficulties of navigating international law amid powerful political interests. A lasting resolution, he suggested, requires a robust international response addressing the root causes of the conflict.

“The Ray Hanania Radio Show” is broadcast every Thursday in Michigan on WNZK AM 690 Radio at 5 p.m. on the US Arab Radio Network and is sponsored by Arab News. To watch the full episodes and past shows, visit ArabNews.com/RayRadioShow.