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SINGAPORE: No rockets will break the quiet across the Israel-Lebanon border for the night.

The ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah took effect just hours ago, at 2am GMT (10am Singapore time) on Wednesday (Nov 27). This could put an end to a year of war between the two sides, a chance to build on the peace – if it holds – and eventually allow displaced civilians to return to their homes and begin the process of rebuilding their lives.

NO CEASEFIRE WITHOUT IRAN’S APPROVAL

For both Israel and Hezbollah, the deal represents an understanding of basic realities.

The Israeli armed forces and its other security arms have wrought what they sought: A marked degradation of Hezbollah’s abilities, the decimation of its leadership, and, perhaps the icing on the cake, leaving Iran’s “forward defence” strategy in tatters.

Hezbollah has recognised this. For all the thousands of rockets it has fired at Israel, it has done little damage.

Instead, it invited a devastating response that has left it shorn of much of its capabilities, and bereft of its leadership. This has led it to turn its back on its vow to keep fighting Israel for as long as the war in Gaza continued. Hezbollah is also a political entity, and knows that it is not particularly popular — a situation that could worsen the longer Israel rains destruction on southern Lebanon.

For Iran, too, there has been a glimmer of recognition of the changed situation on the ground: Hezbollah takes its cue from Tehran, and there is little doubt that a ceasefire would not have been achieved had its masters opposed it.

HOW LONG WILL CEASEFIRE HOLD?

Things get murkier when it comes to the question of whether the ceasefire will hold. In announcing the truce, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made clear that the country was “preserving full military freedom of action” if any parts of the agreement were violated.

It is worth examining the details of the ceasefire as they become clearer – the text of the deal has not been published. What stands out is what Israel would consider a violation: It does not simply include more attacks. Even if Hezbollah seeks “to arm itself”, Mr Netanyahu said, Israel will respond.

This brings us back to the situation in 2006, when the last meaningful ceasefire between the two sides went into effect. Though it lasted for close to two decades, the lull in fighting allowed Hezbollah to regroup, rearm and grow into Israel’s biggest concern along its borders until Hamas attacked on Oct 7, 2023.

While Hezbollah may set aside its ambitions for now, only a hardcore optimist would venture that it would do so over the longer term.

MORE BAD NEWS FOR GAZA

For Gazans, the ceasefire is more bad news. Hamas has been abandoned by its brothers-in-arms to the north and will now have to face the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) alone.

Worse, the truce gives the IDF an opportunity to rest, refit and rearm before it turns its undivided attention to the southern border. That likely means more destruction for a territory that has already been largely reduced to rubble, and which has endured a horrendous civilian toll.

Although United States President Joe Biden said he would renew his push for a ceasefire in Gaza in announcing the truce between Israel and Hezbollah, the combatants appear to be in no real mood to pack it in.

Israel has relentlessly pursued its goal of dismantling Hamas, at the expense, many claim, of liberating its own hostages. Given the critical reaction of Mr Netanyahu’s far-right allies to the agreement with Lebanon and the visceral attitudes held towards Hamas by a large majority of Israelis across the political divide, an end to the fighting in Gaza appears politically untenable for the Israeli prime minister for now.

Hamas appears in no real rush to give in, either. Despite raised hopes on several occasions that a ceasefire was close at hand, the fighting continues, even though the group has also seen its leadership wiped out, its abilities mostly crushed, and, most importantly, a land and people it purportedly seeks to lead subjected to horrifying devastation.

“Give peace a chance,” went the old John Lennon and Yoko Ono song. In Gaza, neither Israel nor Hamas appears anywhere close to doing so. 

Carl Skadian, a former journalist and editor for 30 years, is Senior Associate Director at the Middle East Institute, NUS.