“Let’s see how long that lasts,” Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social on Monday night, addressing his attempts to de-escalate in Lebanon following Israel’s intensified military campaign. Within hours, Israeli drone strikes had killed eight people in the south, including a father and his two children, and damaged a hospital. Hezbollah continued launching rockets and drones.
Anxious to escape the illegal war that he launched on Iran, and with Tehran threatening to suspend peace talks over the Israeli offensive, the US president reined in Benjamin Netanyahu – for now – in what was described as an expletive-laden phone call. Mr Trump’s post, despite its unusual admission of doubt, still oversold the agreement. He claimed that Hezbollah and Israel had agreed to “stop all shooting”. Lebanon’s presidency suggested a more limited deal: Israel would not strike Beirut’s southern suburbs if Hezbollah did not launch attacks against Israel.
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That people are discussing de-escalation at all when a ceasefire is already supposed to be in place epitomises the cruelty of this conflict. The truce has not prevented Israel killing hundreds of people in Lebanon, including civilians, and it had intensified its offensive in late May. Mr Trump’s intervention appeared on Tuesday to have achieved – for however long – a return to a lower rate of death.
With Israeli elections due in October, and with both opponents and far-right members of his coalition demanding intensified attacks on Hezbollah, Mr Netanyahu did not acknowledge that he had shifted and said that Israel would continue military operations in the south. When Mr Trump’s attention wavers once more – he said this week that the Iran talks had “started to get very boring” – the Israeli prime minister is likely to return to the permawar sustaining his political career.
Israel has caused vast damage to Iranian infrastructure and killed key figures. It has made its deepest advance into Lebanon for 26 years and its capture of Beaufort Castle on Sunday sends a message of psychological domination to Lebanese citizens. Yet it has failed in its aims of toppling the Iranian regime and destroying the threat from Hezbollah. A force born in Israeli occupation is unlikely to be ended by it. The destruction of homes and civilian infrastructure allows a group that has long undermined the Lebanese state to position itself as defender of the country’s sovereignty. And militarily, Israel is now struggling to address the growing threat to soldiers in Lebanon and civilians in northern Israel from the group’s explosive drones.
Any diminution of this war is desperately needed by Lebanese civilians. A fifth of the population is displaced: thousands fled Beirut’s southern suburbs on Monday, while many more have seen their homes permanently destroyed as Israel razes villages in the south.
But short-term patches, especially as partial as these, do not advance a long-term resolution of the chaos and violence that Israel and the US have unleashed in the Middle East. The consequences of their illegal war against Iran have been well-rehearsed and are being felt by ordinary people around the world, especially the poorest, who are suffering as the cost of living soars. But they are endured most of all by Lebanese civilians. Invective-filled phone calls and social-media brinkmanship cannot replace a real peace process with sustained, careful and thorough diplomatic engagement.
