Israel-Hezbollah Cease-fire: A Fragile Pause or Just a Tactical Delay?
The Israel-Hezbollah cease-fire pauses months of deadly conflict with a US-led monitoring system in place. While it offers temporary relief, concerns over future stability and Hezbollah’s weakened state leave the truce fragile and uncertain
By Giorgia Valente/The Media Line
The cease-fire agreement signed on Tuesday between Israel and Hezbollah signals a precarious pause in the conflict that has devastated the region over recent months. With over 200,000 civilians displaced across southern Lebanon and northern Israel and hundreds of dead in relentless cross-border violence, the deal represents a crucial, albeit fragile, step toward de-escalation. Yet, its terms reflect a significant departure from the 2006 cease-fire, seeking to halt immediate hostilities and address the shortcomings that reignited tensions.
“This agreement is a way of buying time and a win-win for both sides for different reasons. Israel can obtain the international community’s silence for a while on the Middle East after the ICC’s statements against (Benjamin) Netanyahu and (Yoav) Gallant and all the things that have been unfolding in Lebanon and Gaza. On the other hand, for Hezbollah, it is a chance to keep surviving somehow and regroup after its major losses,” Eyal Zisser, TAU Vice Rector and lecturer at the Middle East History Department at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern Studies, told The Media Line.
At its core, the agreement reiterates familiar commitments: Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon within 60 days and the cessation of hostilities, grounded in UN Resolution 1701. However, it introduces a new enforcement mechanism—an American-led monitoring committee headed by a US general.
“The key changes between today’s agreement and the 2006 UN Resolution 1701 are that the monitoring of this double withdrawal is assured and secured by the US, the UK, and France,” Daniel Meier, assistant professor at Sciences Po, School of Political Science at the University of Grenoble, explained to The Media Line. “This is a new mechanism, despite all that Benjamin Netanyahu said about the fact that Israel will continue to do whatever it takes whenever it wants to strike Hezbollah.”
“It will not happen this way because this control mechanism by the US, France, and the UK will assess and, therefore, recommend or give a green light to Israel. Bringing the UK and France in adds another tone and perspective—probably more balanced than before.”
Unlike the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), widely criticized for its inefficacy, this committee is tasked with overseeing border compliance and curbing weapons smuggling from Syria, a key artery for Hezbollah’s arsenal.
“UNIFIL’s control capacity is rather narrow. It is complicated for the UN to monitor this question effectively. The new mechanism bypasses them, signaling frustration with their past ineffectiveness,” Meier added.
“The choice to implement a new committee reflects the mistrust towards the role of UNIFIL, which didn’t manage to implement at all the resolution 1701 and could have kept doing that further. This new clause helps Israel to control the smuggling through Syria and have new actors monitoring that the agreement is not breached like in the past,” Zisser added.
The deal also codifies Israel’s right to retaliate against violations, including continued surveillance flights over Lebanese territory—provisions absent from the 2006 agreement, which left Israeli responses open to international scrutiny. These measures reflect Israel’s determination to maintain leverage while avoiding a prolonged ground presence, especially as it grapples with the strain of simultaneous military campaigns in Gaza and the north, displacing over 100,000 of its citizens.
“The interesting clause of the Israel-American side of the agreement claims that if Hezbollah makes any violation, Israel is entitled to intervene. Moreover, Israel can continue flying over Lebanon, something absent from previous terms,” Zisser said.
“Israel will keep flying over Lebanon, and this constitutes a violation of its sovereignty. I want to point out that this is not new. It is just continuing a common practice,” Meier pointed out.
For Hezbollah, the cease-fire is a bitter compromise. Unlike 2006, when the group emerged politically emboldened despite severe losses, it now faces a harsher reckoning. Reports estimate the group has lost over 2,000 fighters and critical infrastructure in southern Lebanon. While survival alone is framed as an achievement, Hezbollah’s capacity to rebuild amid Lebanon’s crippling economic collapse remains uncertain.
“The internal apparatus of Hezbollah has been toppled and needs to be reformed. Without Hassan Nasrallah, who capitalized on a long history of victories against Israel, the group lacks legitimacy. Naim Kassem, his successor, is a politician and an intellectual but not a fighter. He has not endured personal losses, undermining his standing,” Meier said.
“The idea of Hezbollah being perceived as ‘unstoppable’ in the Arab world was weakened over the months, and there is a general hypocrisy among Lebanese since many sustained it from the beginning for being perceived as strong, and now speak against it for being strongly defeated,” he added.
“Nasrallah’s goal was never to divide the resistance as a whole. But now Hezbollah has made a very big step from Hamas by distancing themselves to gain strength back and keep surviving on their own. This cornered for sure Hamas, which may have to ask for a cease-fire to survive as well,” Zisser commented.
As of today, several troops of the Lebanese army headed towards the south to maintain the implementation of the cease-fire but pointed out that they will avoid confrontation with Hezbollah. At the same time, many civilians fled back to southern villages to check on their homes.
“People are tired of displacement. They are saying things like, ‘We are ready to go back to our homes and maybe die there—it’s better than living like animals.’ This speaks to the exhaustion of being uprooted from their land and not out of support for an ideology that may cost their lives,” Meier said.
Whether these changes will lead to sustained calm or merely defer another cycle of violence remains uncertain. In the volatile context of the Middle East, cease-fires often serve as intermissions rather than conclusions. The 60-day term may “freeze things” until Trump returns to power in January.
“This is an attempt of waiting for the change of the American administration for sure, but most likely Hezbollah may try to breach the agreement sooner, one way or another,” Zisser concluded.
“This could position Trump as the man who brought peace, with these developments framed as welcome gifts to his administration. It fits the narrative of him being a mythical figure who secures Middle East peace, but we need to sit and watch how everything unfolds,” Meier concluded.
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