Lebanon’s army moves south as part of cease-fire deal, as U.S. weighs more arms to Israel

The Lebanese army began moving south Wednesday to “extend state authority” in the area south of the Litani river, the army said in a statement. The army, in coordination with the United Nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon, will play a key role in enforcing the Israel-Hezbollah cease-fire by ensuring the withdrawal of the militant group from the area closest to Israel’s border.

In the southern town of Marjayoun, residents showered arriving army tanks with rice and flowers as they cheered and waved Lebanese flags, video posted by Lebanese broadcaster Al Jadeed showed.

Israel Defense Forces spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said the IDF’s mission during the cease-fire in Lebanon is to “enforce the agreement,” adding that “any violation will be met with fire.” As part of the deal, Hezbollah is prohibited from bringing in new weaponry or rebuilding militant infrastructure.

Hagari noted the “withdrawal of forces will be gradual.”

Two reporters were wounded by Israeli fire in the Lebanese border town of Khiam hours after a U.S.-backed cease-fire ended fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.

The United States is moving to approve a $680 million arms sale to Israel, according to a person familiar with the proposed sale and a Pentagon official, both of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter.

Thousands of Lebanese troops, members of the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon, or UNIFIL, are set to deploy to southern Lebanon to help ensure Hezbollah militants end their armed presence there, close to the northern border of Israel, under the terms of the two-month agreement.

The deal is a major test for the Lebanese army, a recipient of U.S. support, to act independently and effectively in a country riven by sectarian tensions and in which Hezbollah plays a role in government.

Khaled El Haj returned to the south on a damaged road today to a home that miraculously survived unscathed. There were no utilities.

“There’s no internet, there’s no electricity, there’s barely any water,” he said. The war had also ruined his harvest.

Not only were the olives unpicked and some trees burned, but it would be too dangerous for the 74 year old to venture out into his grove. “We cannot go far because there might be cluster bombs planted in the fields,” he said.

His hometown of Burj Al Muluk near the border with Israel was empty, as few chose to return. Although he has lived through countless wars, this time felt different. “We’ve been through a lot, but this war was long and harsh. We weren’t expecting this,” he said.

MAG, a demining nonprofit, welcomed the cease-fire deal but said Lebanese people “now face a huge reconstruction task” that will be hampered by the unexploded ordnance left behind. The group said weapons that failed to explode could be “buried under the rubble of the estimated 100,000 destroyed houses,” adding that it will work with its specialists to clear the unexploded ordnance.

Correction: An earlier version of this post incorrectly referred to specialists clearing mines in Lebanon. The specialists will be working to clear unexploded ordnance. The post has been corrected.

Israel will appeal the arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant, Netanyahu’s office said Wednesday.

Israel issued notice to The Hague-based global court on Wednesday that it intended to appeal the court’s decision and made a request to delay the execution of the arrest warrants, the prime minister’s office said in a statement.

Hassan Fadlallah, a Hezbollah member of the Lebanese parliament, told local outlet Al Jadeed TV on Wednesday, after the cease-fire deal with Israel went into effect, that the group has “the right to self-defense … if we are attacked.”

“When Lebanon is attacked, it is our right in Lebanon to defend ourselves,” Fadlallah said.

TEL AVIV — Avichai Stern, mayor of the Israeli village of Kiryat Shmona near the Lebanon border, described relative quiet after the cease-fire deal came into effect Wednesday but expressed skepticism of the agreement.

In a phone interview Wednesday, he said that some residents of the border town, which has been subjected to Hezbollah rocket attacks, had been back to collect their belongings but that there has been no formal call for people to return.

As quickly as they fled, people across Lebanon on Wednesday strapped belongings atop cars and headed home, uncertain what awaited them in their cities, towns or villages — or, for their ravaged country, what came next.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz offered his support for the cease-fire in a message on X. “It is important that everyone sticks to what has been agreed, so that people on both sides of the border can live in safety again,” Scholz wrote.

There was an outpouring of celebrations in Sidon and Tyre as residents displaced by Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon made their way home after a cease-fire took effect on Wednesday.

BEIRUT — Lebanese officials on Wednesday lauded the Israel-Hezbollah cease-fire deal as a new chapter in the war.

“We are closing a historic moment that was the most dangerous for Lebanon, threatening its people and history,” parliament speaker Nabih Berri, a Hezbollah ally who has been part of cease-fire talks, said in a televised message.

Hamas said in the wake of the Israel-Hezbollah cease-fire agreement that it will “cooperate with any efforts” to bring an end to the war in Gaza. “We are interested in stopping the aggression against our people,” the group said in a statement, citing certain criteria, including the withdrawal of Israeli forces, the return of displaced people and “the achievement of a real and complete prisoner exchange deal.”

Hamas also commended Hezbollah’s “steadfast” support and called on Arab and Islamic countries to exert additional pressure on Israel and the United States to end the “war of extermination” in Gaza.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz vowed Wednesday to “lead the effort to enforce all the terms agreed upon in the cease-fire with determination.” Katz said the goal was to allow for Israel’s northern residents to return to their homes. He said the deal with Hezbollah was “adding pressure on Hamas” and pledged to “create the conditions” for a new deal to bring home hostages in Gaza.

The United States will “make another push” on talks to reach a cease-fire and hostage-release deal in Gaza with Israel, Turkey, Qatar, Egypt and others, President Joe Biden tweeted Wednesday. While announcing an Israel-Hezbollah cease-fire deal Tuesday, Biden said he hoped that a similar agreement could be reached in Gaza and that he believed it could happen before January.

BEIRUT — Israel and Hezbollah have so far stopped exchanging airstrikes and projectiles following the cease-fire, though skirmishes continued along the southeastern border region on Wednesday.

The Lebanese army said Israeli forces were shelling in parts of southern Lebanon, and Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Hezbollah operatives had entered the border town of Kfar Kila, south of the Litani River.

JERUSALEM — Israeli forces continued their assault on the Gaza Strip overnight, striking multiple shelters for displaced people, said Gaza residents and the Gaza Health Ministry.

Israel and Lebanon’s regional neighbors have embraced the cease-fire deal between Israel and Hezbollah that began early Wednesday.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry said it welcomed the halt in fighting and reaffirmed its “unwavering support for the Lebanese government, people, and resistance.” Tehran, which backs Hezbollah, also called for a halt to the war in Gaza.

Israel’s cease-fire with Hezbollah will allow it to “smash Hamas” with greater ferocity in Gaza, Yaakov Amidror, a retired Israeli major general and national security adviser, said in a news briefing Wednesday. If the pause in fighting with Hezbollah is sustained, he said, Israel’s “ground forces can cope with the issue of Hamas in much more intensive way … and for a very, very long time.”

BEIRUT — In central Beirut’s Hamra district, which accommodated an influx of people displaced by the war in Lebanon, the cars parked in front of a hotel full of people who had fled were gone Wednesday morning.

The Lebanese army said it’s preparing to deploy to the south as part of the cease-fire; the defense minister said in an Al Jazeera interview forces there would increase by 10,000. In a separate statement, the army said it was readying to carry out its mission with U.N. peacekeepers and called on civilians to await the withdrawal of Israeli troops before returning to evacuated areas.

Israel and the militant group Hezbollah have agreed to halt Israel’s invasion of Lebanon and Hezbollah’s attacks on northern Israel for 60 days — after a week of intensive deliberations aimed at stopping Lebanon’s deadliest war in decades. Here’s what to know about the cease-fire deal, its terms and how it will be enforced.

President Joe Biden sought to capitalize on the announcement of a cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah on Tuesday by urging an end to the deadly fighting in Gaza and making a last-ditch push for a broader Middle East peace deal with less than two months left in office.

Israel is seeking to revive negotiations for a hostage and cease-fire deal in the Gaza Strip, considering even a short-term agreement that would release a limited number of hostages with the hopes that it could “get momentum” for a larger arrangement, said a person familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing negotiations. As Israel raced toward finalizing the Lebanon cease-fire in recent weeks, she said, it has also “been trying hard to recover the relationship with Egypt, and get them to be the main negotiators instead of Qatar, and representatives from Egypt and Israel are going back and forth already.”

“The idea is to convey to Hamas, you’re on your own now, there’s no one helping you, so make the deal,” she said, adding that Israel believed that chances of its success decrease the longer it takes for a cease-fire to come together.

Iran on Wednesday welcomed the cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah, which Iran backs. In a statement, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei praised the halt in fighting, reiterating Tehran’s support for Hezbollah and Lebanon. Iran continues to demand a cease-fire in Gaza, he said, calling on the international community to exert pressure to that end.

A U.S.-backed cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hezbollah came into effect at 4 a.m. local time on Wednesday. It is intended to usher in a more permanent end to the deadliest conflict in Lebanon in decades, the Biden administration said.

As the Israel-Hezbollah cease-fire to halt fighting in Lebanon went into effect early Wednesday, a stream of people began heading to the south, according to wires and local media reports. Images taken along Lebanese roads showed cars streaming south, despite warnings from both Israel and Hezbollah to remain out of areas that Israeli forces had ordered to evacuate.

A U.S.-backed cease-fire halting the fighting between Israel and Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon came went into effect early Wednesday, nearly two months after Israel’s invasion of southern Lebanon and following more than a year of hostilities. Here are the terms of the U.S.-brokered deal:

• The agreement, designed as an end to the fighting, calls for an initial two-month halt end to the fighting.
• During this period, Hezbollah militants, along with heavy weaponry, are to move north of the Litani rRiver, in southern Lebanon.
• Israeli troops are to gradually withdraw from southern Lebanon.
• The Lebanese military and U.N. peacekeepers have agreed to secure the region.
• The United States and France are set to join an existing verification mission, established after the last Israel-Hezbollah war in 2006, to make sure violations are deterred.
• Netanyahu said that Israel country would “maintain full freedom of military action,” with the option of striking again at the militant group if it poses a threat.

As President Joe Biden announced a cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hezbollah on Tuesday, which took effect early Wednesday, he described it as “a new start” for Lebanon and expressed hope that such a deal could be reached in Gaza before he leaves office.

“Just as the Lebanese people deserve a future of security and prosperity, so do the people of Gaza. They, too, deserve an end to the fighting and displacement. The people of Gaza have been through hell,” he told reporters.