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In the week since Israel and Lebanon agreed to a temporary cessation of hostilities, the Israeli military has repeatedly violated the agreement, launching a wave of attacks against what it claims are Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon. What may superficially appear to be a brazen disregard for the terms of the deal brokered by the U.S. and France is in fact a dramatic demonstration of the exact intent of the Biden administration’s effort to ensure Israel would continue to pound Lebanon under the auspices of “self defense.” Both the framing of the deal itself and the Biden administration granting Israel a blank check in the form of a secret “side letter” essentially allow for Israel to continue its military assaults while demanding Hezbollah cease all its operations.

“This is an agreement outside of the UN system that effectively is framed and phrased in such a way to allow Israel to continue engaging in armed attacks inside Lebanon, certainly during the 60- day withdrawal period, and arguably even after that,” Maryam Jamishidi, an expert in international law and an associate professor at the University of Colorado Law School, told Drop Site News.

The agreement is structured in such a way to allow Israel to continue defensive attacks, Jamshidi said, without defining what constitutes such an attack. “It basically gives Israel very wide latitude to do what it wants, while completely restricting Hezbollah’s ability to act,” Jamshidi said. “Israel likes to use negotiations, likes to use diplomacy, as cover for continued aggression and continued violations of law. And I think this is probably one of the most egregious, because it is framed as a ceasefire agreement. And I think it’s fair to assume the expectations were that Israel would abide by the spirit of the deal, at the very least, that it would not seek to exploit loopholes as quickly as it has.”

Israel said its attacks, which killed at least 11 people, came in response to a volley of projectiles by Hezbollah earlier in the day—which Hezbollah, in turn, said was a warning to Israel after its repeated violations of the ceasefire in the preceding days. France accused Israel of more than 50 such violations, while a UN peacekeeping force counted more than 100. Israel had launched at least four airstrikes and an artillery barrage across south Lebanon on Monday alone, just hours before the Hezbollah strike, killing at least two people, including a corporal in the Lebanese security services.

The Hezbollah strike on Monday targeted an Israeli military position in a region of Lebanese-Syrian border that is occupied by Israel. No injuries were reported. Jamshidi pointed to the fact that Hezbollah’s warning shot targeted an area in the occupied Shebaa Farms. “This wasn’t even a shot across the bow with respect to sovereign Israeli territory as recognized by international law. This was a shot across the bow into territory that Israel is unlawfully occupying,” she said. “Israel does not have a right of self defense with respect to sovereign territory belonging to another state that it is occupying.”

In a statement, Hezbollah said the strike was retaliation for Israeli military violations of the agreement, including targeting civilians, continued airstrikes, and the ongoing breach of Lebanese airspace. The statement further noted that “efforts to address these breaches through the relevant authorities have been unsuccessful” and framed the strike as an “initial defensive and warning response.”

Israeli attacks continued on Tuesday with a drone strike and artillery shelling in the south, killing one person. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz on Tuesday warned that if the ceasefire with Hezbollah collapses, the military will target the Lebanese state itself. “If the ceasefire collapses, there will be no more exemption for the state of Lebanon. We will enforce the agreement with maximum impact and zero tolerance,” he said. “If until now we have differentiated between Lebanon and Hezbollah, that will no longer be the case.”

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Israel escalated its war on Lebanon in September after a year of cross border attacks with Hezbollah, which began firing rockets and artillery at Israeli forces one day after Israel began its genocidal assault on Gaza. Large swathes of southern and eastern Lebanon were destroyed in the Israeli assault. Hospitals, emergency workers, journalists, dense residential neighborhoods and civilian infrastructure were all targeted. Over 3,800 people were killed and more than 1.2 million forcibly displaced. Hezbollah also inflicted losses on the Israeli military, with scores of soldiers killed, hundreds wounded, and attacked Israeli towns and military installations, forcing tens of thousands of Israeli settlers to evacuate their homes in northern Israel.

“The claim that Israel has distinguished between Lebanon and Hezbollah is patently false. Look at the number of people that have been killed and injured, at the over 1.2 million people that have been displaced, let alone the complete demolition of over 25 villages and towns in the border region,” Ziad Abu-Rish, an associate professor of human rights and Middle East studies at Bard College, told Drop Site News.

Under the terms of the ceasefire deal which went into effect on November 27, Israel agreed to withdraw its troops from south Lebanon over a 60-day period while Hezbollah pledged to end its armed presence in the area, moving its fighters and weapons north of the Litani River. Lebanese troops and UN forces are to deploy to the south, an area that has been devastated by Israeli attacks over the past year. The deal prevents Hezbollah from carrying out “any operations” against Israel, while Israel is barred from “any offensive military operations” against Lebanese targets. A committee chaired by the U.S. that includes France and UN peacekeepers is tasked with monitoring compliance and identifying any violations.

In the hours after the ceasefire went into effect, thousands of displaced Lebanese people who had fled to the north began attempting to return to home. But the Israeli military quickly issued a warning to residents not to return to their villages or to approach its forces and Israeli attacks on civilians quickly ensued. The next day, the Israeli military issued a nighttime curfew in south Lebanon. France has accused Israel of violating the ceasefire at least 52 times over the previous four days, though these were not reported through the monitoring mechanism, while a UNIFIL source told CNN that Israel had breached the agreement 100 times.

“UNIFIL, the French government, other international bodies have stated that Israel has already violated the agreement dozens of times and the incident that the Israeli government is calling attention to by Hezbollah was actually the first on the part of Hezbollah,” Abu Rish said. “It’s very important to recognize that if we’re going to get into the game of the agreement breaking down, it was very clear from the beginning that Israel has been conducting itself since this went to effect in a way…that has been in violation of the agreement.”

“France acknowledged there are these violations by Israel, but we don’t see that France, who is supposedly a party to this agreement, channeling these observed violations through the monitoring mechanism,” Abu Rish said. “And what does this monitoring mechanism even allow for? If they do recognize that violations have occurred, is that actionable?”

Earlier on Monday, Nabih Berri, Lebanon’s parliament speaker, accused Israel of repeatedly violating the ceasefire. “We ask the technical committee formed to monitor the implementation of this agreement where it stands on ongoing violations,” Berri said, urging the committee to “oblige Israel to stop its violations and withdraw from territories it occupies.”

During the ceasefire negotiations, the Biden administration agreed to provide Israel with a letter of guarantee, “recognizing Israeli freedom of action on Lebanese soil, in the event of any attempt to strengthen Hezbollah or another hostile entity there,” according to Haaretz. Israel’s Channel 12 reported that the “side letter” also says the U.S. will share intelligence with Israel on potential violations of the agreement, including attempts by Hezbollah to infiltrate the Lebanese Army, and will work with Israel to prevent Iran from delivering arms to Hezbollah.

“Many people were skeptical of this agreement holding for long because of its gross internal imbalance, in the sense that Israel can apparently continue to hold positions in Lebanon and conduct its military operations in various ways, while Hezbollah is expected to cease all military operations and apparently retreat backwards,” Abu Rish said, adding that the side letter “apparently gave Israel carte blanche to actually do whatever it wants to do south of the Litani river and quite a bit in other regions as well.”

“These two imbalances, both within the agreement and outside of the agreement, make the idea that this temporary truce was actually going to hold very difficult.”

At a news briefing on Monday, in response to a question from Drop Site’s Ryan Grim, State Department spokesperson Matt Miller refused to acknowledge any Israeli violations of the ceasefire. “A lot of the reporting around the ceasefire agreement tends to treat as news that Israel can exercise what ultimately is a right that every country has. Every country has the right to defend itself against terrorist attacks. Israel has that right, Lebanon has that right, every country in the world has that right under international law,” he said, adding, “We have a mechanism that we have set up to look at reports of ceasefire violations and to determine whether in fact they were violations of the ceasefire — whether in fact an incident was in some way justified because somebody had come under the threat of harm.” Miller declined to say what the U.S. response would be if Israel was found to have violated the agreement.

“From the U.S. point of view, the ceasefire holding means that Hezbollah is not launching any attacks,” Jamishidi said. “That’s their view — that the only entity that must cease fire under this deal is Hezbollah. It’s not Israel.”

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