A ceasefire between Israel and the Lebanese group Hezbollah has taken effect hours after United States President Joe Biden said a proposal to end the “devastating” conflict had been reached, promising to halt nearly 14 months of cross-border fighting that has killed thousands of people.
The ceasefire began at 4am (02:00 GMT) on Wednesday amid concerns about whether it would hold and lead to the permanent end of fighting between Israel’s military and Hezbollah forces.
Tens of thousands of forcibly displaced civilians started returning home to the south of the country, defying warnings from the Israeli military not to go back until it withdrew.
“The fighting across the Lebanese-Israeli border will end … This is designed to be a permanent cessation of hostilities,” Biden said, announcing the agreement on Tuesday night.
“Civilians on both sides will soon be able to safely return to their communities and begin to rebuild their homes, their schools, their farms, their businesses and their very lives,” he said.
Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri called on all displaced Lebanese, including those abroad, to return home.
“Come back to your land. Your land will be stronger with your presence. You should come back. You should protect the land that saw the blood of all the martyrs,” he said in a televised speech on Wednesday.
“Come back to your land and bring back life to all the neighbourhoods that the Israeli occupation and aggression tried to destroy. The victory of your land relies on you coming back,” Berri said.
Hezbollah, which did not participate in any direct talks on the ceasefire – with Berri mediating on the group’s behalf – has yet to formally comment.
As part of the ceasefire agreement, Israel will “gradually withdraw” its forces from southern Lebanon over the next 60 days, and the Lebanese army will deploy to the territory.
On Wednesday, Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati called for unity after what he said was the “most cruel phase in Lebanese history”.
He stressed the army’s jurisdiction for security in the south of Lebanon following the ceasefire and said Israel must stay committed to it and withdraw from the south.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the US president that his government had approved the ceasefire and that he appreciated his “understanding that Israel will maintain its freedom of action in enforcing it”, his office said.
Biden released a joint statement with French President Emmanuel Macron, emphasising that both countries “will work with Israel and Lebanon to ensure this arrangement is fully implemented and enforced”.
The US and France also committed “to lead and support international efforts for capacity-building of the Lebanese Armed Forces as well as economic development throughout Lebanon to advance stability and prosperity in the region”, according to the statement.
Lebanon began striking Israel on October 8, 2023, in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. Cross-border attacks persisted for months. Then, at the start of last month, Israel invaded southern Lebanon.
At least 3,823 people have been killed and 15,859 wounded in Israeli attacks in Lebanon since the war on Gaza began in October last year.
Ongoing fighting
In advance of the ceasefire announcement, Israel’s bombardment of Lebanon continued to rage, with warplanes pounding Beirut’s southern suburbs.
Reporting from the Lebanese capital, Al Jazeera’s Zein Basravi said Israeli attacks continued in the minutes immediately after Biden said the ceasefire was imminent.
“Within five minutes or so of Biden completing his speech, we heard loud explosions in Beirut. Once again, sirens started sounding in northern Israel,” he said.
Earlier in the day, the Israeli military said a barrage of strikes had hit 20 targets in the city in just two minutes.
Seven people were killed and 37 wounded in Israeli attacks on a Beirut building housing displaced people, the National News Agency reported, citing Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health.
“The Israeli strike on the Nweiri area in Beirut destroyed a four-storey building housing displaced people,” Lebanon’s official news agency said.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry said earlier that Israeli strikes had killed at least 31 people on Monday, mostly in the south of the country.
Push for Gaza ceasefire
Reporting from the White House, Al Jazeera’s Kimberly Halkett noted that the ceasefire announcement comes in the waning days of Biden’s term.
President-elect Donald Trump is set to take office on January 20.
The Biden administration has repeatedly sought to broker a ceasefire agreement in Gaza but has come up short. It has repeatedly refused to leverage US military aid to Israel in its push for peace.
In the “coming days” the US “will make another push with Turkey, Egypt, Qatar, Israel, and others to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza with the hostages released and an end to the war without Hamas in power”, Biden posted on social media platform X on Wednesday.
“The fact is, [Tuesday’s ceasefire] falls short of the Biden administration’s goal, in that it does not in any way speak to the conflict in Gaza,” Halkett said.
Still, during the address, Biden pledged to “make another push with Turkiye, Egypt, Qatar, Israel and others to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza” in his final days in office.
He also said he would work towards forging new normalisation agreements between Israel and several Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, a goal which had been set back amid the war in Gaza.
