An Israeli-Lebanese ceasefire agreement—purely verbal—has been announced by the US and French presidents, Joe Biden and Emmanuel Macron. At the time of writing this article, no document has been signed by the protagonists.

This agreement was demanded by Benjamin Netanyahu, through US negotiator Amos Hochstein, in total contradiction with his previous positions. The Jewish diaspora is now deeply divided and, for the most part, no longer supports him (cf. VIN 2488). His army is exhausted and has run out of ammunition. His official war goal (to allow the return of 100,000 Israelis to their homes on the Lebanese border) has not been achieved at all. On the contrary, Hezbollah is now attacking military bases as far away as Tel Aviv. His unofficial goal (to expand Israel to the north) has also failed. The IDF, which is undeniably victorious in the air and can destroy anything it wants, is utterly unable to occupy Lebanese territory whose people are resisting.

This ceasefire agreement is said to be valid for 60 days. This means that hostilities can resume in two months or at any time thereafter. Benjamin Netanyahu claims that he has secured the right to attack Hezbollah if it rebuilds its forces, which is absolutely false and is denied by all Lebanese sources who participated in the negotiations.

The prime minister names Iran as his next target. However, Tehran took part in the negotiations and confirmed that it was abandoning its strategy of “Resistance Axis” to move towards a global agreement with the West.

The Arab League for its part, is aware that the 80-year war is not over, but is moving to Iraq and Syria. This is why Iran has resumed contact with the two Iraqi Kurdish parties (cf. VIN 1969) and why Türkiye has relaunched negotiations with Abdullah Öcalan (cf. VIN 2247). Meanwhile, the IDF bombed all the roads linking Syria to Lebanon until the last minute and destroyed its bridges (cf. VIN 2711 and 2712), while the jihadists resumed their attacks on Damascus, as in the 2011 war when Benjamin Netanyahu visited al-Qaeda officers hospitalized in Israel.

This is the editorial from our paywalled “Voltaire, international newsletter”, n°110. For more information, do not hesitate to subscribe: 500€ per year.