Updated November 26, 2024 at 16:53 PM ET
Israel has agreed to a ceasefire to stop the war it has been fighting with the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon for more than a year.
"The Security Cabinet approved the United States' proposal for a ceasefire agreement in Lebanon this evening, with a majority of 10 ministers in favor and one opposed," the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement late Tuesday.
The announcement came during some of the heaviest fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in months, with Israeli airstrikes hitting Beirut and Israeli troops pushing deeper into southern Lebanon on Tuesday, as Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel.
President Biden welcomed the news, saying, "This is designed to be a permanent cessation of hostilities."
Hezbollah — a militant and political force in Lebanon backed by Iran and listed as a terrorist organization by the U.S., Israel and several other countries — started launching rockets into Israel a day after the Palestinian militant group Hamas led an attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, setting off the war in Gaza.
Israel has launched extensive airstrikes across Lebanon, including one in September that killed Hezbollah's longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah. Israel also sent ground troops into southern Lebanon, saying it was fighting to push the militants away from the border so that thousands of evacuated residents who fled Hezbollah's rockets in northern Israel could return safely.
Almost 14 months of the Israeli military campaign in Lebanon has killed more than 3,700 people, many of them civilians, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry, and close to 1 million people have been displaced across Lebanon, according to the United Nations.
In northern Israel, about 80 people, including soldiers and civilians, have been killed in the fighting and about 60,000 residents have evacuated since October 2023, according to the Israeli government.
Before the Cabinet vote, Netanyahu laid out his reasons for supporting the ceasefire, including saying that Israel has dismantled much of Hezbollah's fighting capabilities and killed many senior officials. But he warned that Israel retains the right to attack Hezbollah again if necessary.
"In full coordination with the United States, we are maintaining full military freedom of action," Netanyahu said in his TV address. "If Hezbollah violates the agreement or attempts to rearm, we will strike."
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati welcomed the ceasefire, thanking the United States and France for helping facilitate the deal.
"This understanding, which outlined a roadmap for the cessation of hostilities, was reviewed by me this evening, and I consider it a key step towards establishing calm and stability in Lebanon and enabling the return of displaced people to their homes and towns," Mikati said. "It also contributes to promoting regional stability."
Speaking in the White House Rose Garden Tuesday, Biden explained that the deal will take effect 4 a.m. Wednesday. Then over the next 60 days, the Lebanese army and state security forces will take control of their territory, and Israel will gradually withdraw. The United States, France and other countries will work to help ensure the agreement is implemented, but no U.S. troops will be deployed in southern Lebanon, he said.
The Lebanese military — which is separate from Hezbollah and has tried to stay out of the fight with Israel — and a United Nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon are expected to deploy thousands of soldiers in southern Lebanon, as an international panel monitors compliance by the different sides, The Associated Press reported.
But concerns in Israel and Lebanon remain about how long the ceasefire can hold and whether civilians can be kept safe.
"This agreement is not good because it does not require the Lebanese army and government to disarm Hezbollah," Avigdor Lieberman, an opponent of Netanyahu who is a lawmaker in Israeli parliament, said Monday before the vote.
"It's going to be difficult for Netanyahu to sell this" to the northern Israeli evacuees, Amos Harel, a former nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., and a journalist at Israel's Haaretz newspaper.
And the deal left questions about what happens next for the war in Gaza.
Biden said the U.S. would make a push in the coming days with Turkey, Egypt, Qatar and others to reach a ceasefire and hostage deal in Gaza.
He also said the United States remains ready to conclude an agreement with Saudi Arabia that would normalize relations with Israel and include a security pact and economic assurances, with a pathway for a Palestinian state.
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