Lebanon and Hezbollah: Sense of deja vu prevails at fragile ceasefire

Wanting to know who we were and what we were doing there, it only took a few minutes for some phone calls to check our press credentials before the tension eased and they began to chat casually with us.

It was a relaxed moment, but everywhere in the surrounding streets the buildings pancaked by Israeli air strikes lay as testimony to the violence of the almost month-long war that by then was nearing its end.

“We have won a great victory, the Israelis have been sent home with a bloody nose,” one of the Hezbollah men told us proudly. “They will think again before returning,” he added, before leaving us to go about our work.

Fast-forward 18 years and today’s scenes of destruction across swathes of Beirut and south Lebanon look once again much as they did back in 2006.

Once again, too, Hezbollah have claimed a victory, but the reality after 14 months of conflict is somewhat different from the last time they went toe to toe with their Israeli foes.

That, however, didn’t stop Hezbollah’s leader Naim Qassem on Friday from insisting that things had gone in Hezbollah’s favour.

“We are facing a great victory that surpasses the victory that occurred in July 2006 due to the length of time, the ferocity of the battle, the great sacrifices and also the hordes of hostility with all the American and Western support,” Qassem said, in his first speech since a US-brokered ceasefire took effect on Wednesday.

But in the same speech Qassem also publicly endorsed Hezbollah’s commitment to the ceasefire and to work with Lebanon’s Armed Forces (LAF) that have moved into the country’s south, an area that is considered the militant group’s heartland.

“The co-ordination between the resistance and the Lebanese army will be at a high level to implement the commitments of the agreement,” Qassem said.

“We will work to … strengthen Lebanon’s defensive capacities,” he went on. “The resistance will be ready to prevent the enemy from taking advantage of Lebanon’s weakness along with our partners … first and foremost the army,” Qassem added.

This picture taken from a position in northern Israel, on the border with Lebanon shows the border fence Lebanon (L) and Israel (R) on November 28, 2024

Ceasefire agreement

As it stands, the ceasefire agreement calls for a 60-day cessation of hostilities during which time Hezbollah is supposed to withdraw its forces to north of the Litani River, which runs anywhere between 27 and three kilometres from the Lebanon-Israel border. In effect, this – in theory at least – will mean that Hezbollah will abandon what is left of its military infrastructure and positions, although its personnel who live and work in south Lebanon will remain in their homes.

The LAF, meanwhile, are planning to deploy an initial 5,000 troops to the southern border district as the Israeli military withdraws back into Israel.

But it’s against this fragile backdrop that Qassem’s narrative of “victory” and “co-operation” belies another reality facing Hezbollah which has suffered the most devastating military blow of its four decade history.

It was back on October 8, 2023 that Hezbollah opened a limited battlefront with Israel in support of Hamas and Palestinians under attack in the Gaza Strip.

But in the ensuing 14 months, Hezbollah and its primary backer, Iran, have felt the weight of Israel’s intelligence and military power.

Israeli air strikes inflicted heavy damage on Hezbollah’s military infrastructure, destroying bases, ammunition depots, equipment, fortifications, and tunnels.

These losses have significantly weakened the group’s operational capacity.

Deep intelligence infiltration also enabled Israel to assassinate many senior leaders, including military wing commander Fuad Shukr, his deputy Ibrahim Aqil, and southern front commander Ali Karaki who were killed during the war. This marks the heaviest loss of senior leadership in Hezbollah’s history.

The assassination of its political leaders including Hassan Nasrallah, the previous secretary-general for over 30 years, along with his deputy Hashem Safieddine and political council member Nabil Qaouk, have dealt a blow that the remaining structure of the group may find hard to mend.

Then there is the reputational damage to contend with given that in order to secure a ceasefire Hezbollah also backed down from its longstanding claim that it would not stop fighting until Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza also ended.

Israel has now broken the link between the two fronts, taking not just some of the pressure off its overstretched army but throwing into question Hezbollah’s claims of “solidarity” with its Palestinian “brothers”.

With so many of its military leaders killed, many analysts say the group’s political wing, previously subordinate to its military arm, is likely to play a more prominent role.

Kept apart under the previous general secretary Nasrallah, “now they’ll be forced to work together as this is a very new landscape”, said Nancy Ezzeddine, an expert on Hezbollah at Dutch think tank Clingendael.

Residents who had fled the southern Lebanese city of Tyre, flash the victory sign upon their return on November 28, 2024

‘Always just a facade’

THE political leadership has “always been just a facade to allow Hezbollah to have a seat in the state”, Ezzeddine told the Financial Times in a recent interview.

“They didn’t have the autonomy or capacity to lead the organisation. So as they take on this bigger role, we can expect tensions at least in the first few weeks.”

But Hezbollah will also potentially face wider political fractures within Lebanon itself in what some observers describe as an “internal reckoning”.

For decades, the whole issue of Hezbollah’s existence acting as a “state within a state”, in the eyes of some, has made it a point of considerable political contention.

In the main, historically and even during the recent conflict, many Lebanese acted in solidarity alongside Hezbollah’s supporters when threatened by Israel, but real strains within the domestic political dynamic are always present and put to the test. This has certainly been the case lately, argue analysts.

“Hezbollah’s claim of victory holds little weight outside its core constituency,” Imad Salamey, a Middle Eastern politics expert at the Lebanese American University, told the UK-based media website Middle East Eye (MEE).

“The war was not widely popular among the Lebanese people, many of whom are more focused on the devastating economic losses inflicted during the conflict,” Salamey added.

Those losses are undoubtedly considerable with nearly 4,000 people dead, 16,000 more wounded, and civilian infrastructure bombed and dozens of border villages razed in a trail of destruction left by Israeli forces.

Many Lebanese will be unable to return home and around 100,000 homes have been damaged. The war has displaced 1.2 million people, the government says, mostly Shi’ite Muslims from Hezbollah strongholds in southern Lebanon, the southern suburbs of Beirut, and the eastern Bekaa Valley.

The World Bank estimates the war has caused $8.5 billion in damage and economic losses, more than one-third of Lebanon’s GDP. Hezbollah insists that money for reconstruction will not be an issue, but given that its own main backer, Iran, has its own economic woes and Hezbollah’s unpopularity with other Middle Eastern governments, it is unclear who may contribute funds for reconstruction, and with what conditions.

This very point has been flagged up by observers including Elias Farhat, a retired Lebanese army general, who spoke with MEE.

“With a powerless state and the absence of major donors and funding bodies, the biggest challenge Hezbollah faces is its ability to secure the financial needs for its popular base, which has lost its homes. Will it pay rent for a year and provide funds for furniture, as it did in 2006? Where will it find the money for such an operation?” asked the former general.

Any failure by Hezbollah to effectively respond to such reconstruction challenges could result in more finger-pointing of the kind that blames them for consistently bringing catastrophe upon the country.

Displaced residents react as they stand in front of the rubble of their destroyed house in Baalbek, eastern Lebanon, Thursday, Nov. 28, 2024

Political rivals

As powerful a representative as Hezbollah remains for Lebanon’s Shias, its domestic political rivals are always looking for an opportunity to exploit claims that the group brings nothing but trouble to the country as a whole.

These rivals include Christian leaders who are keen to shift the levers of power in Lebanon’s sectarian power-sharing system in their favour. The danger, as in Lebanon’s past that such challenges to power end up in sectarian violence, is a spectre the country has long lived with.

This is especially the case given the current fluidity that exists at the top tier of government, compounded by the fact that Lebanon has been without a president since Michel Aoun’s term ended in October 2022.

Its government has also been acting in a limited caretaker capacity since the last parliamentary elections in May 2022.

According to Lebanese politics expert Imad Salamey, in the wake of the current war Hezbollah is “likely concerned about growing opposition within Lebanon, which could create two polarised camps, one supporting Hezbollah and the other pushing for disarmament”.

“To suppress dissent and maintain control, Hezbollah may feel compelled to take domestic actions, including using its influence to neutralise political opponents or deter their activities through various actions,” Salamey told MEE.

Whether Lebanon’s other parties will now feel empowered to stand against it, however, remains unclear.

Hezbollah still has many thousands of fighters in Lebanon and commands the loyalty of a large share of the country’s Shi’ite Muslims.

Perhaps nowhere will the post-ceasefire political landscape be tested more than in the country’s south, much of which is inhabited by Lebanon’s Shia population and therefore Hezbollah heartlands.

On both sides of the Lebanon -Israel border there are concerns about the ceasefire deal. Seen specifically from an Israeli perspective, there are fears of a rerun of 2006 after their previous war with Hezbollah ended with UN Resolution 1701, which called for the militia to disarm.

Not only did Hezbollah ignore the edict but the Lebanese army, which was meant to patrol the region south of the Litani River, was too weak to enforce it.

In that regard nothing much has changed with the Lebanese Army still weak after an economic crisis that bankrupted the Lebanese state.

As a report in The Economist magazine recently highlighted, many soldiers are reduced to moonlighting as taxi drivers to supplement monthly salaries that are worth as little as $100.

Given such challenges, the Lebanese Army will need donations from Western and Arab backers to recruit and equip more troops.

Then there is still the thorny question of even with financial and technical support, would the army be willing to confront Hezbollah were the group seen to be openly breaching the ceasefire deal?

As a recent MEE article starkly observed: “Will it accept a confrontation with Hezbollah, supported by more than half of the Lebanese population, by transforming into border guards serving Israel?

Or will it continue to fulfil its primary mission of maintaining social order in Lebanon and preventing the conditions for a civil war from taking shape?

That prospect of pitting Lebanese against Lebanese in a country where sectarian divisions run deep sends a chill down many a spine.

The flag of Lebanon is painted on a destroyed structure in the village of Weiss El Jabal as seen from a position on the Israeli side of the border in Northern Israel on November 27, 2024

Challenges

GIVEN Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem’s speech on Friday, in which he endorsed their commitment to the ceasefire, the feeling for now at least is that this will provide the group with breathing space, and an opportunity to regroup and come up with a forward plan to confront the many domestic political challenges it now faces.

Hezbollah will also be in close dialogue with its ally Iran.

While Tehran says publicly it too is happy with the ceasefire, both know that it has dealt a heavy blow to Iran’s regional strategy of “bleeding” Israel on multiple fronts.

For the moment, a shaky ceasefire in a nervous vacuum prevails. “I don’t think this vacuum is good for Hezbollah or for anyone in Lebanon,” said Mohanad Hage Ali, a respected analyst at the Carnegie Middle East Centre in Beirut.

Hezbollah will use the truce, which will last an initial 60 days, “to get themselves back together”, he told the Financial Times, echoing the views of many analysts currently.

Back in 2006, a combination of military fatigue, lack of an exit strategy, and US-led international pressure brought an end to the Israel-Hezbollah hostilities then.

And back then, too, UN resolution 1701 called for all the right things, but few of them materialised.

Above all, there was no solid plan to prevent the fighting from happening again and it’s hard to avoid a sense of deja vu right now even if some things are very different with regard to Hezbollah’s position this time around.

Yet, for all these caveats, the ceasefire is a rare bit of good news in a region that has produced so little of that lately.