Fragile Lebanon Ceasefire Could Unravel, Reigniting the Iran War Too

As Hezbollah and Israel exchange fire despite a declared ceasefire, the Iran war might reignite with one mass-casualty event, leading to renewal of the American-Israeli war in Iran. In the three weeks since Beirut and Jerusalem agreed to a Washington-sponsored ceasefire, the Israel Defense Forces remained in southern Lebanon while Hezbollah increased assaults on troops and northern Israeli civilians. The terror organization is also introducing to the battlefield a new drone type, which as yet the IDF is unable to defend against. “For at least the next few weeks we are forced to live under conditions of neither peace nor war,” a former Israeli ambassador to Washington, Mike Herzog, told Kan News on Tuesday. America insists on keeping the fragile ceasefire, but Israel is unlikely to maintain the current low level of hostilities if it suffers a mass casualty event, which could happen at any moment. “Yesterday morning, at 8:00 am, as students were heading out for the day, the sirens wailed again,” the founder of the northern Israeli-based think tank Alma Research, Sarit Zehavi, writes to the Sun. “The alarms caught my own daughter on her way to school. As they took cover, the children heard a massive explosion from a drone impact.”Hezbollah’s latest battlefield innovations are small explosive-laden drones that are remotely operated through fiber optic cables. Unlike GPS-guided drones, the new weapon is difficult to detect and intercept by electronic means. Inexpensive fiber optic cables can be 12 miles long, allowing the operator to hide far from the target. Even as such drones have been used in Europe for a while by Russian troops, Ukraine and Israel have yet to mount an adequate defense against them.An Israeli soldier was killed by one such drone on Sunday, and several others were injured when a second Hezbollah drone struck while troops tried to rescue a tank crew. Israel’s Iron Dome and other systems intercept a large number of projectiles at northern Israel. Yet the new weapon’s ability to evade defenses could lead to a large number of civilian casualties. A 2024 Hezbollah rocket killed 12 children at the Golan Heights Druze community of Majdal Shams. The horrific attack mobilized the IDF, which struck Hezbollah with all its might, including with the now-famous beeper operation. An incident of the Majdal Shams’s magnitude would force Israel to similarly end the current ceasefire, likely reigniting the war in Iran as well. For now, Israel is heeding Washington’s demands for restraint, avoiding strikes on Hezbollah targets at Beirut and northern Lebanon. On Sunday, though, an IDF strike hit Hezbollah targets north of the 7-mile security zone it occupies inside Lebanon, killing 14 Lebanese people, including civilians.“What obliges us is the security of Israel, the security of our soldiers, the security of our communities,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his cabinet. “We act vigorously according to the rules we agreed upon with the United States, and also, by the way, with Lebanon.” President Trump was initially careful to delink the Iran war from Israel’s war against the Islamic Republic’s proxy, Hezbollah. Yet, as Tehran demanded a ceasefire in Lebanon, America pressured Israel to ease a full-court assault that would further degrade the terror organization’s capabilities. America brokered a 10-day ceasefire in Lebanon on April 14, and Jerusalem’s and Beirut’s ambassadors to Washington met at the Department of State and later at the White House. The agreement was extended for three more weeks last Thursday, but since the ceasefire was announced dozens of Hezbollah fighters have been killed in southern Lebanon, as were 14 IDF soldiers. Hezbollah’s secretary-general, Naim Qassem, “rejects the ceasefire and continues to reject the very existence of the State of Israel,” Ms. Zehavi says. “It is impossible to forge any true diplomatic arrangement or agreement with the Lebanese government while ignoring this extreme and uncompromising stance.”Beirut faces a dilemma. As Secretary of State Marco Rubio notes, the Lebanese Armed Forces under the government’s control “may have willingness but don’t have full capability to address all threats emanating from Hezbollah inside of Lebanon.” Israel’s goal is to “start a process that would weaken Hezbollah as much as possible, while at the same time help the Lebanese government to maximize its ability to confront the terror organization,” Mr. Herzog said. That, however, is a long process that could be interrupted by Hezbollah and its patrons at Tehran.

Fragile Lebanon Ceasefire Could Unravel, Reigniting the Iran War Too

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