THE CEASE FIRE DID NOT LAST 48 HOURS BEFORE HEZBOLLAH VIOLATED IT
The cease fire has been violated by Hezbollah. The terrorist group is resupplying its bases on the border with Israel.
It seems the only interest of the Hezbollah was to have a few hours of reduced conflict to extract the leaders that were stranded under the IDF operations.
It is sad that the population of Lebanon is kept hostage of a terrorist group that dishonors a cease fire or even worse, engages the parties like Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, USA, UK and France into negotiations just to violate the cease fire after a few hours.
Sites in Syria has been used to resupply Hezbollah and has been destroyed by air attacks.
ISRAEL RESPONSE
The Israeli government is keeping its word on the ceasefire, with small retaliatory attacks on Hezbollah, but it has already made clear that if Hezbollah breaches the ceasefire in a significative way they will retribute.
The convoy of munitions from Syria was attacked with Air-to-Surface missile at a civilian border crossing – a crime in itself.
LEBANON RESPONSE
The Lebanese government is playing the difficult wire act of not displeasing Hezbollah and Iran at the same time trying to keep the communications channel with Israel open.
The Lebanese government is frail and depends on the willingness of Hezbollah not to return to civil war, for its army is less powerful than Hezbollah and it is infiltrated with sympathizers of Iran.
The failure of the Lebanese Armed Forces to keep Hezbollah from enforcing the 1701 resolution, where Israel withdrew from Lebanon in 2006 only proves the point. Lebanon is still recovering from the financial meltdown in 2019. The economy is in bad shape.
The civil war from 1976 to 1990 has also left deep fractures in the nation, once created to host the Christian Maronite from the Levant and today its Shia and Sunny Muslin majority fights for ultimate control of the government. The assassination of prime ministers, presidents have been a fixture of the politics in Lebanon.
Lebanon neighbors are not interested in peace. The most important neighbor is Syria, which is emerging from a civil war of itself is serving as a conduit of munitions from Iran to Hezbollah. Syria made no secret of intending to return to Grand Syria of the Levant. Given the geopolitics of the post Sikes-Picot, Syria has kept the frontiers while actually dominating Lebanon by stealth, being at the same time guardian and keeping Lebanon for itself.
PROGNOSTICS
Israel will use the cease fire to test the will of Hezbollah. Whenever there is a chance, Israel will neutralize the Hezbollah violations of the cease fire and keep on dismantling their military structure.
For Lebanon, the only hope is that Europe engages into Hezbollah removal from Lebanon, liberating it from Iran influence and restoring independence. There was no Iran in Lebanon before 1982 and there should be no Iran in Lebanon today.
The Hezbollah will get weaker and weaker if this attrition continues and will resort to terrorist attacks on Western targets in order to get some financing from oil rich supporters. The next administration in the USA will tighten the sanctions against Iran and Hezbollah will diminish. If the Europeans – France – takes the lead and restore Lebanon, it may as well return to be the gateway to the Middle East.
If the USA takes the lead and restore Lebanon, it will face the destructive envy from Europe and the task will be much more difficult for the Lebanese people, but this can also work. The Maronite population of Lebanon deserves some respite.