A 10-day truce appeared to be holding in Lebanon early today Friday, promising a pause in fighting between Israel and the Hezbollah militant group and possibly clearing one major obstacle to a deal between Iran and the United States and Israel to end weeks of devastating war.
Yet it remained unclear whether the militant group would recognize a deal it did not play a role in negotiating and which will leave Israeli troops occupying a stretch of southern Lebanon.
Barrages of gunshots rang out across Beirut as residents fired into the air just after midnight to celebrate the beginning of the truce, and displaced families began moving toward southern Lebanon and Beirut’s southern suburbs despite warnings by officials not to attempt to return to their homes until it became clear whether the ceasefire would hold.
A spokesperson for the U.N. peacekeepers in southern Lebanon said Friday that they have not observed any airstrikes since midnight, but accused the Israeli military of violating airspace and artillery shelling in southern Lebanon. The Israeli military did not immediately comment. According to the agreement shared by the State Department, Israel can act in self-defense against imminent attacks but cannot carry out offensive operations against southern Lebanon.
U.S. President Donald Trump heralded the deal as a “historic day for Lebanon,” even as he expressed confidence that the war with Iran would soon end in a Las Vegas speech.
“I will say the war in Iran is going along swimmingly,” Trump said. “It should be ending pretty soon.”
An end to Israel’s war with Hezbollah was a key demand of Iranian negotiators, who previously accused Israel of breaking the current ceasefire deal with strikes on Lebanon. Israel said that the deal did not cover Lebanon.
Pakistan’s army chief met Thursday with Iran’s parliament speaker as part of international efforts to press for an extension of the ceasefire.
While oil prices fell on hopes of a deal, the head of the International Energy Agency warned that energy shocks could get worse if the Strait of Hormuz doesn’t reopen soon. Iran closed the crucial waterway, through which a fifth of the world’s oil normally passes, shortly after the war began. Europe has “maybe six weeks or so” of jet fuel left and broader economic consequences will grow the longer the strait is closed, IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol told The Associated Press on Thursday.
The leaders of France and the U.K. will gather dozens of countries but not the United States on Friday to push forward plans to reopen the strait.
The fighting has killed at least 3,000 people in Iran, more than 2,100 in Lebanon, 23 in Israel, and more than a dozen in Gulf Arab states. Thirteen U.S. service members have also been killed.
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