Israel’s security cabinet voted this evening to approve a cease-fire agreement that would halt fighting in the yearlong conflict between Israeli forces and Hezbollah, the Lebanese armed group. The agreement, which still needs formal approval in Lebanon, is supposed to take effect at 4 a.m. local time tomorrow, said President Biden, who pushed Israel to agree to the deal.
Under the deal, Israel would withdraw its forces from Lebanon over the next 60 days and Hezbollah would move its fighters north. Biden said it is intended “to be a permanent cessation of hostilities.”
Hezbollah did not immediately comment on the announcement. Lebanon’s government, which does not control Hezbollah but whose approval is essential, was set to meet tomorrow morning to discuss the cease-fire agreement. Here’s a map of what the truce would look like.
Approval from Israeli ministers, in a 10 to 1 vote, came after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu embraced the proposal in a televised speech. Just hours earlier, Israeli forces had pounded the heart of Beirut and Hezbollah-dominated neighborhoods with some of the heaviest airstrikes of the war.
The cease-fire in Lebanon may have little effect on the war in Gaza. “Hamas is expected to dig in,” Patrick Kingsley, our Jerusalem bureau chief, said. “The Israeli government is likely to continue to push for Hamas’s complete destruction, even as Israeli generals warn that such a goal is near impossible.”