Biden announces Lebanon ceasefire

‘Under the deal reached today, effective at 4am local time, fighting across the Lebanese/Israeli border will end,” President Biden said.

President Biden, in his final weeks in office, announced today that the governments of Israel and Lebanon have agreed to a U.S. ceasefire proposal, due to take effect at 4am local time on Wednesday.

“Under the deal reached today, effective at 4am local time, fighting across the Lebanese/Israeli border will end,” Biden said in remarks from the White House Rose Garden. “This is designed to be a permanent cessation of hostilities.”

Deal envisions phased withdrawal of IDF

Over the next 60 days, according to the agreement, there will be a phased withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon, as Lebanese security forces take control of the area that previously had been dominated by Iran-backed Hezbollah, a senior US administration official said.

From 4am tomorrow, “all fire will stop from all parties,” the senior US administration official, speaking not for attribution, told journalists on a virtual call after Biden announced the deal. “Israeli troops who are occupying territory in Lebanon will hold their positions. They will not [immediately] withdraw. But a 60-day period will start in which the Lebanese military and security forces will begin their deployment towards the south.

“This is a process that cannot happen overnight or in several days,” he said. “Therefore, there is this period to prevent any vacuums from being formed, where, as the Lebanese military deploys and reaches the South, the Israeli military will withdraw. … So it will be a phased withdrawal,” he said.

US and France to serve as de facto guarantors

“The United States and France will work with Israel and Lebanon to ensure this arrangement is fully implemented and enforced,” to prevent a new cycle of violence, Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron said in a joint statement. The United States and France also commit to lead international efforts to bolster the Lebanese Armed Forces and the reconstruction and economic development of Lebanon, they said.

The United States will not be sending combat troops to southern Lebanon, but will provide technical assistance to help bolster the Lebanese security forces, the US official said.

“In multiple places around the world, we provide technical assistance, capacity building,” the US official said. “If we need folks on the ground, they will be based… in the embassy. The President was clear that no troops would be deployed to the south, and we are not going to be engaging in… any kind of combat operations of any kind. This is all in security assistance and other kinds of related activities.”

U.S. coordinator briefed Trump team

US special envoy Amos Hochstein briefed members of incoming President Trump’s national security team shortly after the US elections on where the negotiations for a ceasefire were, and then again in the past few days, the U.S. official said.

“After the election, when I thought the negotiations had reached a point that I could see the light at the end of the tunnel…I briefed President-Elect Trump's senior national security team on the tenets of the deal and my expectations that …[there] was a higher likelihood of it coming to fruition,” the senior US administration official said. “I felt that they needed to know what we were negotiating and what the commitments were.”

“I did another round of that, just in the last 24 to 48 hours,” he said. “They seem to be supportive. And for the obvious reason that I think they agreed that this is good for Israel, as Prime Minister Netanyahu just said; it is good for Lebanon, as their government has said; and it is good for the national security of the United States. And most importantly, doing it now versus later will save countless lives on both sides.”

Among those issuing praise of the prospective deal today—along with a big dose of flattery to Trump-- was incoming Trump national security advisor, Congressman Mike Waltz (R-Florida).

“I’m glad to see concrete steps towards deescalation in the Middle East,” Waltz wrote on Twitter, after claiming that “everyone is coming to the table because of President Trump.”

“The Iran Regime is the root cause of the chaos and terror that has been unleashed across the region,” Waltz continued. “We will not tolerate the status quo of their support for terrorism.”

“Massive airstrikes” in central Beirut, Tyre overnight

At about 1am local time, three hours before the deal was due to go into effect, people in Beirut and Tyre, on Lebanon’s coast, reported massive Israeli air strikes.

“Massive airstrikes on Tyre and its outskirts,” Ali Hashem, a reporter with Al Jazeera, wrote on Twitter at 1am local time. “Walls are shaking!”

The Israeli Defense Forces spokesman for the Arab media tweeted a map of an area in central Beirut with immediate evacuation orders. “Urgent warning to residents of the Beirut area, specifically anyone in the buildings marked in red….in the Bachoura area: you are located near Hezbollah facilities and interests, against which the IDF will operate in the near future,” IDF Arabic spokesman Avichay Adraee wrote on Twitter. “For your safety…you are required to evacuate these buildings immediately.”

The accompanying map shows that the intended target building is located across the street from Beirut High School for Girls.

“The sudden spread of targets in central Beyrouth [Beirut] suggests that Israel isn't just intensifying its bombing campaign ahead of a ceasefire,” Middle East analyst Peter Harling wrote on Twitter. “It’s trying to shape the day after, through internal political pressure, by terrifying a broad cross section of Lebanese society.”

A Lebanese-born, London-based foreign affairs analyst relayed a kind of joke that suggested while some Lebanese took the agreement in stride as a promise for a rapid return to semi-normalcy, he worried about a dozen ways it could unravel.

“Most Lebanese WhatsApp family groups tonight: Grandparents in Beirut: Yalla, Christmas plans back on track, come home to celebrate, we are readying the house,” Emile Hokayem, with the International Institute for Strategic Studies, wrote on Twitter. “Parents abroad: Yalla we are buying the tickets…We will bring the diapers and plenty of cash.

“Me: here are the 15 ways all this can unravel in the worst possible way,” Hokayem wrote.

Biden expressed hope for expanding on the ceasefire deal to make a new push for the release of over 100 hostages still held by Hamas, and a deal to end the war in Gaza; and even, seemingly improbably, on advancing a Saudi-Israel normalization deal in the seven weeks he has left in office.

“Israel has been bold on the battlefield,” Biden said. “Now, Israel must be bold in turning tactical gains against Iran and its proxies into a coherent strategy that secures Israel’s long term safety and advances peace and prosperity in the region.

“Today’s announcement is a critical step in advancing that vision,” he said. “It reminds us that peace is possible.”

Photo: Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri met with US special envoy Amos Hochstein in Beirut on October 21, 2024 (AFP).

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