France and US Accuse IDF of Violating Ceasefire with Hezbollah

Just a few days into the Israel-Lebanon agreement for a ceasefire requiring Hezbollah to remove all of its forces from south of the Litani River, and not to rearm anywhere in Lebanon, the terror group has been testing Israel’s resolve to make sure Hezbollah hews to the agreement. In every case so far of violations by Hezbollah of its commitments, the IDF has been swift to respond. But the result has been that Israel, not Hezbollah, is being accused of “violating” the agreement by both the United States and France. More on their condemnations can be found here: “US Follows France in Warning Israel Over Ceasefire Violations,” JNS, December 2, 2024:

Washington has backed up Paris’ assertions that Israel is violating the terms of last week’s ceasefire agreement with Lebanon, that formally ended 14 months of hostilities with the Hezbollah terrorist group.

US presidential envoy Amos Hochstein, who played a pivotal role in brokering the deal, conveyed a message to officials in Jerusalem that they are not abiding by the truce terms, Ynet reported on Monday.

Sources told the Hebrew news outlet that the Americans believe that there have been violations on the Israeli side, primarily its use of surveillance drones over the skies of Beirut.

This makes no sense. Israel is entitled under the agreement to prevent any violations by Hezbollah that it detects anywhere in Lebanon. The surveillance drones over Beirut are not being used as weapons, but only to detect possible violations of the agreement by Hezbollah. How else could Israel possibly keep track of what Hezbollah is doing in Beirut — where it has its headquarters and the bulk of both its weapons and combatants — without those surveillance drones?

The sources stressed that for the ceasefire to hold, “restraint is required from all sides.”

Paris, a member of the Washington-led monitoring mechanism overseeing the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire agreement, had accused Jerusalem of committing 52 ceasefire violations, according to Hebrew media reports on Sunday that cited French diplomatic sources.

France accuses Jerusalem of “52 ceasefire violations”? This is nonsense. Almost all of these so-called “violations” are only acts of surveilling Hezbollah movements. In a few cases, the IDF has attacked Hezbollah operatives behaving suspiciously in southern Lebanon. For example, south of the Litani River, the IDF detected several Hezbollah operatives moving a rocket launcher to a new hiding place in southern Lebanon. The IDF struck, destroying the rocket launcher. Under the agreement, Hezbollah must be moving all of its weapons out of southern Lebanon, and not elsewhere in southern Lebanon. Israel has a right to prevent such violations. This was a legitimate target, properly reported to the Americans.

The sources alleged that Israel had bypassed the established channels for reporting violations before taking action.

The reports also claim that three Lebanese civilians were killed and highlight an increase in Israeli drone activity, claiming that low-altitude flights over Beirut had resumed….

The Israeli drones do not violate the Israel-Lebanon agreement. They are essential to the task of monitoring the movement of Hezbollah operatives. Hezbollah may not like them; that’s too bad; they are indispensable to the effort of keeping track of Hezbollah in its attempts to hide weapons and combatants.

France has for the past century had a special relationship with Lebanon, and especially with its once-majority Christian population. It still sees itself, not quite accurately I’m afraid, as the protector of the Lebanese Christians — deliberately overloooking the fact that that role in the last decades has been assumed by Israel, which helped the Christians in the Muslim-Christian civil war in Lebanon that lasted from 1975 to 1990.

“The Lebanese are fully committed to upholding the ceasefire and preventing Hezbollah from reestablishing its presence in southern Lebanon, but they need time to demonstrate their efforts,” a French official told Ynet on Sunday….

What does this remark mean? It means that the French official admits that the Lebanese are as of now simply incapable of preventing Hezbollah from “reestablishing its presence in southern Lebanon.” So both the French, and the Lebanese government, admit that Hezbollah has no intention of observing its commitments under this new agreement, and intends not to leave southern Lebanon but to “reestablish its presence.” And both France and Lebanon admit that the Lebanese army will “need time to demonstrate its efforts.” But in the meantime, though they don’t say it, only the IDF has the ability both to monitor Hezbollah and to prevent its attempts to violate the treaty.

The French seem to think that Israel can surveil Hezbollah movements only south of the Litani River. That is not the case. The IDF can monitor Hezbollah throughout Lebanon. In south Beirut, for example, the IDF would want to know if there has been any movement of rockets in or out of Hezbollah buildings in the group’s stronghold of Dahieh. In northern Lebanon, the IDF wants to monitor Iranian weapons being smuggled into Lebanon from Syria, and thence to Hezbollah. Furthermore, the side letter to the agreement that Washington gave to Jerusalem allows the IDF to attack a Hezbollah target — say, a rocket launcher — if it has a good-faith belief that the target constitutes a violation of the agreement by Hezbollah.

Israel is not engaged in offensive attacks. It is only acting defensively against Hezbollah targets that constitute a threat to the security of the Jewish state; it is enforcing the agreement with Lebanon, not violating it.

According to the Israel-Lebanon agreement, Hezbollah must leave southern Lebanon. Instead, a group of Hezbollah operatives were detected moving rockets and rocket launchers not north of the Litani, as the group is obligated to do, but elsewhere in southern Lebanon. That was a clear violation of the agreement, and given that UNIFIL and the Lebanese army are still in no condition to take on Hezbollah, though they may able to do so some months from now, the IDF hit the sites “where Hezbollah activity was detected.” Its other strikes in southern Lebanon are all permissible under the side letter that Washington gave to Jerusalem.

According to reports regarding the contents of the letter, Israel reserves the right to act at any time, should the terms of the agreement be broken in southern Lebanon. Beyond southern Lebanon, however, it is reportedly only permitted to act if the Lebanese Army is unable or unwilling to deal with the violations. But for now the Lebanese Army is far too weak to take on Hezbollah; it will require large amounts of both weapons to come close to Hezbollah’s vast arsenal, and of money to pay new recruits. Until then, only the IDF can prevent violations of the agreement by Hezbollah. By enforcing the agreement,Israel has now — in this topsy-turvy world — been accused of having violated the agreement “52 times.” Each flight by a single Israeli drone over Beirut constitutes a “violation” of the agreement. It is Hezbollah that through its threatening movement of men and weapons has triggered lawful attacks by the IDF on those men and weapons.The IDF is only detecting threats — using its drones — and then responding to threats that appear imminent, such as the movement of rockets and rocket launchers to new, presumably more secure, sites. It would be good if both France and the US should recognize that fact and stop blaming Israel for enforcing the agreement.