Extract from ABC News
Israeli soldiers rest near the Israel-Lebanon border, in Israel. (Reuters: Florion Goga)
G'day, ABC Middle East correspondent Matthew Doran here in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
It's the end of day 48 of the war, day nine of the ceasefire (which for now includes Lebanon), and day four of the US-declared blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.
What you need to know:
- US President Donald Trump has, once again, announced major news via social media post — saying that the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Lebanese President Joseph Aoun have agreed to a 10-day ceasefire in Lebanon. It came into effect at 7am AEST on Friday (midnight in Lebanon). The latest conflict in Lebanon, which has continued despite the broader truce between the US, Israel and Iran, has been between Israel and the militant group Hezbollah, but has claimed the lives of many Lebanese civilians.
- Mr Netanyahu said the Israeli military would remain on Lebanese territory within 10 kilometres of the border during the ceasefire, calling it a "security zone" that is "stronger, more powerful, more continuous, and more solid" than before. He said the peace talks had two fundamental requirements: disarming Hezbollah and a lasting peace agreement, adding that he did not agree to the two conditions Hezbollah insisted on: Israel's full withdrawal and that the "ceasefire would follow a "quiet-for-quiet formula".
- Hezbollah urged people to "remain patient and endure" and not return to their homes in areas targeted by Israel "until the course of events becomes fully clear" because Israel had "a history of violating pledges". Earlier Hezbollah MP Ibrahim al-Moussawi told AFP the group would "cautiously adhere" to the deal if Israel stops all attacks and not use the ceasefire "to carry out any assassinations".
- The Israeli security cabinet convened a meeting on Thursday night, local time, to agree to the ceasefire. Israel's public broadcaster KAN was already characterising it as Donald Trump "forcing" a ceasefire on Israel, in a bid to shore up his negotiations with Iran. Lebanon's Prime Minister Nawaf Salam welcomed the announcement of the truce, and said it was what his government had been pushing for since talks between Israeli and Lebanese Ambassadors to the US were held in Washington earlier this week. Mr Trump said he would invite the pair to the White House for more "meaningful talks".
- Earlier in the day, the prospect of a phone call between Mr Netanyahu and Mr Aoun set off fevered speculation. Again, Mr Trump posted on Truth Social that it would be the first discussion between the leaders of Israel and Lebanon in more than three decades, but Lebanese network LBCI reported that president Aoun told the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio he wouldn't take a call from Mr Netanyahu in the near future.
- Before the ceasefire development, Israel destroyed the last bridge connecting southern Lebanon with the rest of the country, as it continued its bombardment of claimed Hezbollah targets. The Israeli campaign over the past six weeks, including the invasion of southern Lebanon, has killed almost 2,200 people, including many civilians, and forcibly displaced more than one million Lebanese.
- US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, referred to by the Trump administration as the Secretary of War, says Iran's new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamanei is wounded but is believed to be alive. In a press briefing at the Pentagon, Mr Hegseth said the US military was "locked and loaded" to restart strikes against Iran if a deal was not struck to end the war.
And what does it all mean?
It has seemed for the past few days that a ceasefire in Lebanon, more than a week after the pause in hostilities elsewhere in the region, was imminent.
Although reaching that deal was always going to be tricky.
Talks between the ambassadors of Israel and Lebanon to the US earlier in the week, however separate they were from the negotiations between the US and Iran about the future of the broader war, were a sign the White House was trying to pull every string possible.
And it appeared those talks only happened as a result of pressure from the US for Israel to change course.
It was worried that the IDF's intense bombardment of Lebanon, including last Wednesday when more than 300 were killed in the course of just 10 minutes, was harming the prospects of a deal with the Iranian regime to open the Strait of Hormuz and curtail its nuclear ambitions.
Tehran, backed in by mediator Pakistan, had been clear that it believed Lebanon was always included in the regional ceasefire. Israel, backed by the US, had insisted it wasn't.
After the Trump Truth Social announcement, the initial lack of public backing for the ceasefire in Lebanon from the Israeli government suggested it had been dragged to this point.
Israel's public broadcaster KAN was already characterising it as Mr Trump "forcing" a ceasefire on Israel.
Avigdor Liberman, one of Mr Netanyahu's political opponents and a former defence minister, said it was a "betrayal of the residents of the north" who had come under intense Hezbollah rocket fire for the past six weeks.
Hezbollah politician Hassan Fadlallah was reported in Iranian state media as saying Tehran's "efforts have borne fruit in imposing a comprehensive ceasefire in Lebanon".
It all appeals to Donald Trump's desire to be seen as the world's great deal-maker.
But the devil will be in the detail here. Or, more accurately, the enforcement.
The last ceasefire in Lebanon, between Israel and Hezbollah in late 2024, was far from an end to the fighting.
Israel was accused of almost daily breaches of the deal, launching strikes deep into Lebanese territory when it perceived a threat from Hezbollah.
Recent history in Gaza also points to Israel's willingness to continue attacks, even when a deal is on the table.
And Israel is not going to withdraw its forces from southern Lebanon immediately.
It's why some got into a lather earlier in the day, when news filtered through that Mr Netanyahu and Mr Aoun might talk by phone.
The deep and long-held enmity between Lebanon and Israel goes back decades. These are two countries that have technically been at war for almost 80 years, since the creation of the state of Israel.
And each chapter of the conflict has been marked by intense suffering, particularly as the Israeli military launched operations such as its invasion of southern Lebanon — which ran from 1982 to 2000.
This invasion has brought back some of that trauma for the Lebanese with memories of that period.
It's one thing for the Israeli and Lebanese envoys in Washington to sit in the same room.
It's another thing entirely for leader-to-leader talks, however informal they may be, with the sound of explosions in the background of any phone call, not least because of how that would be received by a war-weary public.
That population will be hoping for a quiet night tonight. How long it lasts in this unpredictable war is anyone's guess.
And here's how to stay up to date:
You can keep track of the latest updates from Iran, Lebanon and around the world throughout the day via our live blog.
Thanks for joining me. I'll see you at the same time tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment