After weeks of war between Israel and Hezbollah, Lebanon’s government has won a brief reprieve with a 10-day cease-fire.
Breaking a longstanding diplomatic taboo, the country’s leadership took a gamble by calling for talks with Israel in a bid to end the fighting — a bet that appears, for now, to have paid off.
Even as President Trump pushed for a direct phone call between Israeli and Lebanese leaders before the cease-fire on Thursday, President Joseph Aoun refused, opting instead to keep diplomatic engagement at a lower level. The move was apparently aimed at bolstering his political clout as he worked toward a cease-fire while avoiding the appearance of normalization with Israel, a deeply sensitive issue in Lebanon.
Turning that short-term truce into something lasting, however, will be a far greater challenge.
The government, which has no direct control over Hezbollah, now faces having to navigate the ever-thorny issue of the Iran-backed group’s disarmament.
But there is no national consensus in Lebanon on how or even whether that goal should be pursued. Hezbollah has long bucked calls to disarm and if the Lebanese government forces the issue, it could raise the risk of domestic instability at a critical moment.
For Israel, however, it is a nonnegotiable demand.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel described the disarmament issue on Thursday as “fundamental” to any broader peace deal.
That quagmire leaves Lebanon’s leadership with no good options, only less bad ones: pushing ahead with talks and moving against Hezbollah risks inflaming tensions at home, while failing to do so could mean a return to war.
“It’s a huge dilemma,” said Mohanad Hage Ali, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, the Lebanese capital.
Lebanon’s government also faces the prospect of an Israeli occupation across much of the country’s south, which Israel invaded during the war. Mr. Netanyahu made clear that he has no intention of withdrawing under the truce, and Washington has shown little sign of pressing him to do so.
“We are not leaving,” Mr. Netanyahu said after the deal was announced, outlining what he called a “security strip” stretching more than six miles into Lebanese territory.
That continued presence, which Israeli officials have said would entail the destruction of border towns and villages, will most likely prolong the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Lebanese, deepening a humanitarian crisis that Lebanon’s government is already under pressure to alleviate.
As Lebanon gears up for further talks with Israel, the question of Israel’s withdrawal will be a central bargaining chip in the negotiations, analysts say.
“These are people’s homes,” said Maha Yahya, director of the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut. “Will Israel use this in the negotiations? Absolutely. It’s just one more card they can play.”
“But,” she added, “you can’t build long-term peace under the barrel of a gun.”
Euan Ward is a Times reporter covering Lebanon and Syria. He is based in Beirut.
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