After six weeks of fighting, Israel and Lebanon appear to be nearing a ceasefire.
President Donald Trump announced the 10-day moratorium, which he said would help “achieve PEACE” between the countries, in a social media post on Thursday. The ceasefire will come into effect at 5:00 pm East African time.
The agreement came after representatives of Israel and Lebanon met in Washington, DC, earlier this week for them first direct conversation in decades, and against the backdrop of the ongoing US-Iran ceasefire.
The latest fighting began early last month, two days after the first US-Israeli attack on Iran, when the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group attacked a village in northern Israel.
Israel quickly retaliated, firing missiles and destroyed homes in a war that killed more than 2,000 people and displaced more than 1.2 million Lebanese. In the process, Israel has taken over about 15 percent Lebanon area; it says it expects maintain a “buffer zone” until Hezbollah is disarmed, which it may take years.
Under the terms of the ceasefire, Israeli troops would remain in southern Lebanon.
Nora Boustany, who reported from Lebanon and across the Middle East for the Washington Post for nearly three decades and now lives in Beirut, says that the biggest fear in the country is that Israel’s occupation will continue.
“Lebanon is small,” Boustany told Today, It’s Explained co-host Sean Rameswaram. “It can be swallowed within two weeks, and it’s immune at the moment.”
Boustany, who now teaches journalism at the American University of Beirut, talked about Lebanon’s history, his fear as Israeli tanks once again roll into southern Lebanon, and what it’s like to live in Beirut right now.
The following is part of their conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s more in the full podcast, which was recorded before news of the ceasefire broke Thursday. You can listen to it, and every episode of Today, It’s Explainedwherever you find podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandoraand Spotify.
Of the conflicts between Lebanon and Israel that we can look at from the past decades, what concerns you the most? Could Lebanon descend into another civil war like it did in the mid-1970s?
Right now the biggest fear is that – like in 1978 and 1982 when the Israelis invaded and occupied, claiming that they needed to have this buffer zone – that we will have part of the country under occupation.
This is what involved the Iranians. Hezbollah was formed in 1982 after Israel invaded Lebanon. The government (of Lebanon) was very weak at that time. We had the Palestine Liberation Organization and their rebels, and expelling them took the lives of 20,000 people at that time, most of them civilians. The country has never stood on its feet since then.
Iran began to use money and resources to recruit Shiite youth from those border villages and from the suburbs of Beirut in order to protect itself and create a foreign policy channel where it could pressure the West.
At that time, the Iran-Iraq War had begun. Iranians saw that the United States, England, all these Western countries were helping Saddam Hussein when he was fighting Iran. Lebanon was the best place for pressure. American hostages were kidnapped and held for seven years by groups that were paid by Iran. My biggest fear is that we will go back into that.
Hezbollah are fighting for their political survival and legitimacy, and they can come out on top. This is something that the Lebanese government does not want and at least two-thirds of the Lebanese population does not want. It means continued instability, ongoing fighting on our southern border with Israel, and an expanding security zone, which the Israelis feel they must establish to keep their northern settlements safe.
“I’m really stuck online with my students because they’re weak, and I’m praying that we’ll get out of this very dark tunnel.”
Lebanon is small. It can be swallowed within two weeks, and is currently immune.
How much of what happened in Gaza is acceptable in Lebanon?
The Lebanese will not give up on their country easily. But what we saw in Gaza was on both sides a kind of corruption and also a desire for land that the Israelis did not hide.
We were witnessing in real time – because of social media and because of Palestinian photographers and videographers in Gaza and in the West Bank – what was happening, and it’s scary.
Hezbollah is not as concentrated in civilian areas as Hamas was. It’s not in control, but it’s definitely fighting its corner and being very stubborn and rude. And some Lebanese are involved in it, and that is very scary.
Israel’s performance has also not been encouraging. What they did on Wednesday, (April 8), in 10 minutes was indescribable. They killed more than 350 peoplemost of them women and children.
I don’t see any difference between the Israelis and the Iranians in wanting to use the Lebanese as human shields, and that is disgusting.
This is a country that loves to have fun. People like to go out, go to restaurants, go to the beach. There are many universities, and all of them are at risk right now.
Do you think there is an environment where people stand up and say, We are sick of this. We don’t want Hezbollah to wage war against Israel again because it presents this danger that southern Lebanon could turn into the next Gaza.. Do you think there is a way out?
People stand up and speak out every day on news platforms, podcasts, interviews.
It’s very easy to solve the problem in Lebanon: strengthen the government, help it take care of its disenfranchised people – especially the majority of Shiites, not all – so that Iran doesn’t feel like it can come in and do what it wants. Lebanon needs help.
And yes, the Lebanese government is financially bankrupt and having a very difficult time standing on its feet. But we have a very honest president, (Joseph Aoun) – maybe not the most creative or assertive president, but he was the commander of the army.
The Prime Minister, (Nawaf Salam), is a judge who presided over the International Court of Justice. (He knows) a lot about what international law demands, but he lacks the tools or the toolbox to accomplish what a powerful central government should do.
To say history repeats itself feels like an understatement when it comes to Lebanon. How do you live day to day?
Everyone lives with it differently. I have cousins who live on the Christian side of Beirut. I live on the west side, which is very mixed, very mixed, near the American University (of Beirut). I don’t go out. I leave home twice a week to do my pilates class. I read all day. I am very attached online to my students because they are weak, and I pray that we will get out of this very dark tunnel.
There are 6 million Lebanese. They cannot all go. They can’t all leave. I happen to have a small flat in DC, but not everyone can. People have built a rich life here. We have a rich history here. I have a house in the country that has been in the family for almost 470 years. I will not give that up.
You feel that the country is no longer important to global affairs. The French talk a good game, the British too. There will probably be less human support, which is good. But Lebanon needs more than that.
