US President Donald Trump announced in a Thursday social media post that the governments of Israel and Lebanon have agreed to a 10-day ceasefire that will begin on Thursday evening.
The president also said that he would be inviting Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House to establish a more lasting truce between the two countries.
Israel has for weeks has been conducting a relentless bombing campaign and ground invasion in Lebanon that has killed and wounded thousands of people while displacing over 1 million.
The ceasefire announcement does not mean that lasting peace has been achieved, given that the deal was between the Israeli and Lebanese governments but not the political and militant group Hezbollah.
Nicholas Grossman, professor of international relations at the University of Illinois, said that a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon is “a weird thing to tout, since Lebanon isn’t a combatant” and “there is no Lebanese fire for the Lebanese government to cease.”
Amichai Stein, diplomatic correspondent for Israel’s i24News, reported that members of Netanyahu’s Cabinet were “outraged” during a meeting because Trump announced “Israel’s consent to a ceasefire before Security Cabinet approval.”
Iran has been insisting on a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon as a precondition for continuing negotiations about ending the war with the US, which Trump launched illegally in late February without any authorization from Congress.
‘This is not self-defense’
A group of two dozen United Nations experts issued a scathing joint statement on Wednesday condemning Israel’s ongoing assault on Lebanon as “a blatant violation of the UN Charter, a deliberate destruction of prospects for peace, and an affront to multilateralism and the UN-based international order.”
“We are witnessing the continuing utmost contempt for the international legal order, for diplomacy, and above all for the lives of civilians and the environment in Lebanon,” the experts said. “Israel has chosen the very moment a ceasefire was announced – one that its Pakistani mediator stated included Lebanon – to unleash the largest coordinated wave of strikes on the country since 1980.”
Despite signals in recent days that the Israeli and Lebanese governments were engaged in their highest level of diplomatic talks in decade, Israel’s military continues to ferociously bomb southern Lebanon, devastating entire towns – including homes and schools – and killing civilians. On Wednesday, according to Lebanese officials, Israeli forces killed three paramedics in a “triple-tap” airstrike on the town of Mayfadoun.
“This is not self-defense,” said the UN experts, including special rapporteur on the right to education Farida Shaheed, special rapporteur on the right to food Ben Saul, and special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories Francesca Albanese.
“The issuance of blanket evacuation orders, combined with the destruction of urban and village housing that displaced persons would have returned to, is consistent with the pattern of domicide that was initiated during the genocide in Gaza,” the experts continued. “Forced displacement of a civilian population constitutes crimes against humanity and is a war crime under international law.”
More than a million people, over a fifth of Lebanon’s population, have been displaced since Israel ramped up its assault on the country in early March, claiming to target the political and militant group Hezbollah.
UNICEF USA said Thursday that at least 600 children have been killed or wounded by Israeli attacks on Lebanon since March 2, and more than 390,000 have been forced from their homes. Overall, Israel’s assault on Lebanon has killed more than 2,000 people since early march.
“Nowhere is safe for children in Lebanon,” the organization said.
In their statement on Wednesday, the UN experts demanded that Israel “immediately cease all military operations in Lebanon” and urged the United States – Israel’s leading ally and arms supplier – to “use its influence” to ensure Israel stops the bombing.