What the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Lebanon predicts - and what to expect from now on

State Department Chief of Staff Daniel Holler speaks as Israel's Ambassador to the US, Yechiel Leiter, and Lebanon's Ambassador to the US, Nada Hamadeh, accompanied by US Ambassador to Lebanon, Michel Issa
REUTERS/Nathan Howard
Israel and Lebanon agreed to renew their fragile ceasefire and create several security "pilot zones" inside Lebanon where Hezbollah operatives cannot enter operate, the US State Department announced.
The agreement is "conditional on a complete end" to attacks by the Iranian-backed armed group Hezbollah, among other conditions.
This comes after Israeli attacks killed at least nine people in southern Lebanon on Wednesday (3) and Hezbollah launched rockets into northern Israel, putting to the test a partial truce agreed on Monday.
The countries "reject any attempt by state agents or non-state, of compromising the future of Lebanon", said the statement.
The two countries will meet again on June 22 to hold new negotiations "with the aim of reaching a comprehensive agreement". Hezbollah has not yet officially commented on the announcement.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters before the announcement that he expected them to produce "an action plan that charts a path to security [in Lebanon] independently of Hezbollah." following the fourth round of US-brokered talks in Washington, is conditioned on the "withdrawal of all [Hezbollah] agents" from an Israeli-controlled area in southern Lebanon, from the Litani River to the border.
Hezbollah is a Shiite political and military group operating in Lebanon that has been involved in a series of violent conflicts with Israel. The group is considered a terrorist organization by Israel and many other countries, including the UK and the US.
The statement said the US will help guide the creation of "pilot zones in which the Lebanese Armed Forces will assume exclusive control of the territory, to the exclusion of all non-state actors".
The announcement did not include maps to indicate where the pilot zones would be nor explanations of how they would work in practice.
This follows a partial ceasefire agreed on Monday, which, according to Lebanon, would make Israel refrain from bombing Beirut, in exchange for Hezbollah not attacking Israel.
Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir, from the radical right, called the agreement a "serious mistake", claiming that it will allow Hezbollah to "strengthen".
"The State of Lebanon is a partner of Hezbollah", he wrote in X.
He asked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to reject Donald Trump's calls for an end to the fighting in Lebanon.
Despite the agreement, Lebanese state media reported on Thursday morning that Israeli attacks had continued in the south of the country, with at least one of them causing casualties.
The partial ceasefire was tested by fire from both Israel and Hezbollah this week.
Lebanon's Health Ministry said those killed by Israel's strikes on Wednesday included two paramedics whose ambulance was hit in an attack in the southern Chehour area. A car was also hit just south of the capital, Beirut.
Meanwhile, the Israeli Army said it intercepted a drone and two projectiles that crossed the border. Hezbollah said it targeted a cluster of Israeli troops.
Smoke rises from southern Lebanon after Israeli strikes
REUTERS/Stringer
Before the announcement on Wednesday night, Israel's leaders had warned that the country's military would resume attacks on Hezbollah's stronghold in Beirut's southern suburbs, known as Dahieh, if the group launched cross-border attacks on communities in northern Beirut. Israel.
According to the Lebanese government, the partial ceasefire agreed on Monday stated that "Israel will not launch a broad offensive against Beirut in exchange for Hezbollah refraining from launching attacks against Israel."
The government said Hezbollah had confirmed its acceptance, but a member of the group's political council, Mahmoud Qamati, told the BBC on Tuesday: "There was no ceasefire agreement, only the protection of Dahieh."
Qamati also insisted that Hezbollah would not fulfill any commitments made in the Lebanese-Israeli negotiations in Washington.
"We believe that these negotiations do not concern us, nor do we recognize their conclusions or decisions, because we reject them in principle," he said.
Lebanon was drawn into the war between the US, Israel and Iran on March 2, when Hezbollah launched rockets at Israel in retaliation for an Israeli attack that killed the leader Iran's supreme leader. Israel responded with an air campaign across Lebanon and a ground invasion in the south.
A US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon on April 16 failed to stop the fighting, and last week Netanyahu ordered the Israeli military to intensify its strikes against Hezbollah and advance deeper into Lebanon in response to drone and rocket attacks on communities in northern Israel.
At least 3,516 people have been killed in Lebanon since the start of the war, according to the country's Ministry of Health. Its data does not distinguish between combatants and civilians.
The UN says more than a million people have also registered as displaced in Lebanon, where Israeli evacuation orders cover more than an eighth of the country.
Israel says 26 of its soldiers and four Israeli civilians were killed on both sides of the border during the war.
Lebanese media reported Israeli attacks across the south of the country on Wednesday.
The Ministry of Health reported that four Syrians and two Palestinians were killed in an attack in the al-Housh area, which is just south of the coastal city of Tyre.
The ministry also said that two paramedics were killed and a third was seriously injured when Israeli forces "directly hit an ambulance" in the Chehour area, which is about 14 km to the east. The ambulance belonged to the Risala Scout Association, which is affiliated with the Hezbollah-allied Amal movement.
The ministry accused the Israeli military of "showing contempt for international humanitarian law," which specifically protects medical personnel.
At least 128 paramedics and healthcare workers have been killed in Israeli attacks on ambulances and medical facilities over the past three months, according to the ministry.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military. In the past, they have claimed that ambulances were being used for military purposes, but without providing any evidence.
The Lebanese army, for its part, said that one of its soldiers was killed in an Israeli airstrike on the road between Nabatieh and Kfar Tebnit, about 27 km northeast of Tyre. The state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported that his motorcycle was hit by a drone.
The army said two other Lebanese soldiers were injured in another Israeli attack on their vehicle on the road between Deir Zahrani and Nabatieh.
It denounced what it called "a pattern of deliberate attacks targeting army personnel, vehicles and positions" by Israeli forces.
This week on the edge of Beirut, where thousands of displaced people live in tents with limited access to food, drinking water and toilets, Mariam Hessa said she wanted a ceasefire that covered the entire country.
"I don't think it's fair, because always the south is being bombed, and houses [are] being damaged, destroyed, people are dying," the 23-year-old student told the BBC.
"I want the ceasefire to be for the whole of Lebanon, not just for an area like Dahieh or even the south. No, it's for the whole of Lebanon. We need it. of that."
The partial ceasefire was announced by U.S. President Donald Trump, who on Wednesday appeared to confirm a report that the deal was brokered after he called Netanyahu "crazy" in an expletive-filled call prompted by the prime minister's order to bomb the Lebanese capital.
"I was a little disturbed by him constantly fighting Lebanon," Trump told the New York Post's Pod Force One podcast. "At some point, I said, 'Bibi [Netanyahu], we have to stop this.'"
Netanyahu later agreed to suspend attacks on Beirut, but emphasized that the Israeli military would continue operating in southern Lebanon.
When asked about the call in an interview with CNBC, Netanyahu said: "Sometimes, like in the best families, we have these tactical disagreements. We always find a way to resolve them."
Analysts believe Trump is worried that a Further escalation in Lebanon could jeopardize a broader agreement to end the war between the US, Israel and Iran.
Iran has warned the US that any regional ceasefire must include Lebanon.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi warned on Wednesday that if Israeli aggression against Beirut continued, its armed forces would be "fully prepared" to resume the war, Iran's Tasnim news agency reported.
But still in the Wednesday, Trump said he wanted to separate negotiations between the US and Iran from those related to the war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
"I would like to separate, I would like to have something separate, because it is... separate," the US president told reporters.
We used artificial intelligence to translate this report, originally written in English. The text was reviewed by a BBC journalist before publication. Find out more here about how the BBC is using artificial intelligence (link to English text

Source: G1