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By Tom O'Connor
Deputy Editor, National Security and Foreign Policy
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A representative of the Lebanese Hezbollah movement has announced to Newsweek the group's victory after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu won the backing of his cabinet for a ceasefire approval.
Netanyahu said during televised remarks Tuesday that he would recommend an agreement to halt the conflict in Lebanon, which intensified substantially in recent months amid a simultaneous war between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Israel has been engaged in battles on multiple fronts in the Middle East since Hamas led a surprise attack against the country on October 7, 2023.
Shortly after Netanyahu's announcement, a spokesperson for Hezbollah told Newsweek that the group, which was involved indirectly in United States-backed negotiations via Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, had yet to be officially notified of the plan's approval.
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"We have not been informed of Israel's approval until now except through the media," the Hezbollah spokesperson said. "We will wait for the document."
Still, the Hezbollah spokesperson affirmed that, despite the heavy blows dealt to the powerful organization throughout the conflict, it remained "strong in the field and with every day that passes we become stronger."
"Israel was defeated," the spokesperson said. "It only killed innocent people."
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Newsweek reached out to Hamas and the Iranian Mission to the United Nations for comment. The Israeli Consulate General in New York declined Newsweek's request for comment.
Israeli media reported that Netanyahu's cabinet quickly voted in favor of the ceasefire deal, the full contents of which have not been made public.
The agreement, which is set to take effect at 4 a.m. local time on Wednesday, reportedly calls for a 60-day cessation of hostilities along with the withdrawal of both Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters from southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah would be required to move personnel and weapons north of the Litani river, located around 20 miles from the Israel-Lebanon boundary known as the Blue Line. Troops of the Lebanese Armed Forces would be deployed in place of Hezbollah in this area.
U.S. President Joe Biden later confirmed in a statement that both Netanyahu and Lebanese Prime Minister Mikati had "accepted the United States' proposal to end the devastating conflict between Israel and Hezbollah." A day earlier, National Security Council Communications Adviser John Kirby confirmed to reporters that an agreement with U.S. backing was "close."
Biden said the deal was intended to be "a permanent ceasefire," but Netanyahu has signaled a willingness to take further military action if deemed necessary.
"The length of the ceasefire depends on what happens in Lebanon," Netanyahu said during his remarks on Tuesday. "We will enforce the agreement and respond forcefully to any violation. We will continue united until victory."
He offered three main reasons for seeking a ceasefire agreement, the first being to "focus on the Iranian threat," the second to "give our forces a breather and replenish stocks" and the third, to "separate the fronts and isolate Hamas."
The Israeli premier argued that Israel would "maintain full freedom of military action in Lebanon" with "the United States' full understanding."
Clashes continued following the news of the deal Tuesday as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) conducted dozens of airstrikes across the neighboring country, including heavy raids against the capital Beirut, in parallel with a ground offensive in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah also claimed at least 26 rocket and drone operations that same day.
Mikati condemned Israel's ongoing attacks and called on the international community to ensure the ceasefire came into effect immediately.
"Targeting Beirut in particular proves the enemy's hatred for it," Mikati said in a statement Tuesday. "The international community is required to act quickly to stop this aggression and implement an immediate ceasefire."
Iran, the top ally of Hezbollah, had also expressed its support for a ceasefire deal after Ali Larijani, an adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, held talks with Berri in Beirut earlier this month. On Tuesday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi discussed the agreement with U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres on the sidelines of the World Forum of Civilizations meeting in Portugal.
Hezbollah began a campaign of cross-border attacks just a day after Hamas' large-scale attack last October. Other groups of the Iran-led Axis of Resistance coalition have also launched attacks against Israel from Iraq, Syria and Yemen, while Israel and Iran have engaged in two rounds of unprecedented direct strikes against one another.
Days after killing longtime Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah amid an intensive air campaign in Lebanon, the IDF announced in September that it would begin a "limited" land incursion into southern Lebanon. Netanyahu has said that the goal of the campaign was to restore security and return displaced communities to Israel's largely evacuated northern border region.
Nasrallah's successor, Sheikh Naim Qassem, said during an address last week that Hezbollah was participating in ceasefire talks with two overarching objectives, "stopping the aggression completely and comprehensively" and "preserving Lebanese sovereignty, meaning that the Israeli enemy has no right to violate, kill, or enter whenever it wants under different titles."
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The Lebanese Health Ministry has reported on the deaths of more than 3,500 people as a result of Israeli attacks that began last October, without distinguishing between civilians and fighters.
In Gaza, where separate ceasefire talks have shown little signs of progress, the Palestinian Health Ministry has recorded more than 44,200 deaths in the Hamas-run territory since the conflict began.
Israeli officials have estimated that nearly 1,100 people, most of them civilians, were killed in the initial Hamas-led attack last October. The IDF has placed the death toll of its personnel in the ensuing wars at 378, while claiming to have killed more than 17,000 Hamas fighters and more than 2,000 Hezbollah fighters, though both groups often dispute Israeli figures.
Netanyahu has vowed to continue the fight in Gaza until Israel achieved its three wartime goals of eliminating Hamas, rendering the Palestinian territory incapable of posing a threat to Israel in the future and returning up around 100 hostages still held by Palestinian factions.
Meanwhile, President-elect Donald Trump had repeatedly called on Netanyahu to "finish the job" against Hamas in the leadup to his election victory earlier this month. Upon winning, Trump vowed to oversee a more peaceful international order and put an end to wars, including in the Middle East, drawing mixed reactions of both hope and skepticism from Hamas and Axis of Resistance factions engaged in the conflict with Israel from Iraq and Yemen.
With Trump set to take office just days before the 60-day Lebanon ceasefire would expire, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters Tuesday that the Biden administration was "absolutely committed to working with the incoming administration on this issue and everything that we're dealing with."
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