A ceasefire deal would be a triumph for Israel against Hezbollah

Hezbollah bought itself undone by its decision to launch a low-level war against Israel in solidarity with Hamas after the October 7 massacre last year.

A 60-day ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah would be a stunning victory for Israel in its war against the terrorist group.

Israel’s cabinet is expected to sign the deal, ending hostilities in Lebanon along with Hezbollah’s attacks on northern Israel and likely forming the basis for a more permanent ceasefire,after Israeli Prime Minister announced on Wednesday morning that Jerusalem had agreed the truce.

What would make this ceasefire deal so remarkable is that Israel clinched it by monstering a terrorist group that foolishly goaded it and then misjudged Israel’s capabilities and its commitment to cripple it.

Hezbollah will have been forced to sign this agreement from a position of extreme weakness, not strength. Israel has brought the group to its knees by mounting a brutal, targeted assault on all aspects of the Iranian-backed group, but especially on its leadership.

It is clear that Hezbollah never recovered from the destruction of its leadership in September, ­starting with Mossad’s targeted expositions of Hezbollah-issued pagers and walkie talkies that killed or maimed several thousand of the group’s commanders and members.

This was quickly followed by the assassination of longtime leader Hasan Nasrallah in Beirut and then the killing of several of his anointed successors.

Israel has followed this with widespread bombing of Hezbollah military sites in southern Lebanon and in Beirut, along with a ground invasion of the southern border region. Sadly the cost of civilian lives in this offensive has also been high.

Hezbollah bought itself undone by its decision to launch a low-level war against Israel in solidarity with Hamas after the October 7 massacre last year.

The almost daily barrage of rockets into northern Israel forced 60,000 Israelis to flee their homes, and Israel’s stated reason for its current offensive has been to end those attacks to allow its residents to return home.

Some right-wing members of Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling coalition argued that this ceasefire deal amounted to a “surrender” and that Israel should keep fighting to try to destroy Hezbollah for a generation. But those voices should be ignored. Hezbollah is a political movement as much as a militant force in Lebanon and to seek to destroy it further would only lead to massive civilian casualties in Lebanon with questionable strategic benefits.

In any case Hezbollah will have learned a very painful lesson in this conflict about goading Israel again anytime soon.

If Hezbollah breaks any of this latest agreement, you can be sure Israel will restart hostilities.

What we have learned over the past two months is that Hezbollah was vastly overrated by Western analysts as a serious fighting force. For a group that was supposed to have the largest arsenal in the world for a non-state actor, Hezbollah’s missiles and rockets caused only minimal damage to life and property in Israel. Now much of its arsenal is destroyed. Hezbollah initially boasted that it would only stop attacking Israel if there was a peace deal in Gaza, but once Nasrallah died, his nervous successors quietly dropped that demand.

Hezbollah’s backer and enabler, Iran, has also been shown to be far weaker in capability and intent than many analysts expected.

Hezbollah’s decision to sign this ceasefire was sanctioned by Iran, which clearly did not want to see its terrorist proxy further destroyed. Iran has already exchanged direct attacks with Israel this year to its detriment. It does not want an ongoing fight with Israel directly, or indirectly.

There are still hurdles to climb in implementing any ceasefire deal.

The conditions of the deal would see Israeli forces withdraw from southern Lebanon while Hezbollah also withdraws from the south and stops its attacks on Israel.

But Hezbollah has made a similar deal before – in 2006 – only to eventually move its forces slowly back towards the Israeli border.

There would need to be more vigilance this time by international monitors to ensure Hezbollah sticks to the agreed conditions.

But if this ceasefire deal is concluded then it is a big win for a war-weary Israel. It would allow it to concentrate on delivering the biggest and most difficult deal of all: securing an agreement with what remains of Hamas to end that war and secure the release of the surviving hostages in Gaza.