Lebanon Ceasefire Plan Collapses as Israel Strikes the South

For Serbia, which has spent years balancing its relationship with Israel against support for the Palestinian side in multilateral forums, every new round of violence in southern Lebanon is another arena where Belgrade must weigh its words carefully. The latest collapse of the framework agreed in Washington sends the region back to square one and is a reminder that the fragile truce of April 17 never actually silenced the guns.

Hezbollah rejected the framework on June 4, one day after Israel and Lebanon had formally agreed to it. From the Lebanese side, the deal required the movement to stop its attacks and pull its fighters south of the Litani River, a line Israel regards as essential to its own security. With that condition refused, the Israeli military sent an unambiguous message: there will be no withdrawal from southern Lebanon until Hezbollah accepts the terms on the table.

Why did the ceasefire plan fall through?

The framework that was meant to halt the fire rested on a single clear demand: separating Hezbollah’s fighters from the Israeli border and pulling them south of the Litani. The movement, which is not taking part in the Washington talks, rejected that logic and brought down a structure that had been built over weeks.

The consequences were almost immediate. Israel ordered the evacuation of nine villages in southern Lebanon and then carried out a series of strikes on Friday. The casualty figures vary by source:

• Lebanese state sources report six people killed in the attacks of June 4 and 5.
• Other sources put the toll at nine dead across six different locations.
• The overall death toll in this round of fighting has, according to Lebanon’s health ministry, passed 3,000.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, who had defended the doomed framework as a realistic chance to calm the front, did not hide his disappointment.

This is the last chance for a comprehensive ceasefire.

What comes next for southern Lebanon?

Fighting between Israel and Hezbollah began on March 2, and the strikes have continued despite the ceasefire declared on April 17. That truce, like earlier attempts, looked more like a pause than a lasting end to hostilities, because fire from both sides never fully stopped.

The collapse of the Washington framework now raises several questions that have no answers yet. Will Hezbollah, leaning on its own logic of resistance, agree to any line of demarcation along the Litani? Will Israel, which insists on disarming the movement, keep its presence in the south indefinitely? And how much room for diplomacy is left for President Aoun, who has just warned that the last opportunity has slipped away.

This arrangement may have cooled Washington’s rhetoric, but not the situation on the ground. As casualty figures are still being revised, it is clear the region has entered a phase in which each new strike could close the last door to negotiations.

Do you think the rejection of the framework reflects a calculation that time is on Hezbollah’s side, or simply that neither party still believes in a truce that has been broken since day one?