Key takeaways
- The November 2024 U.S.- and French-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah was being violated by both sides within 48 hours, and never produced a lasting calm.
- On June 26, 2026, the United States, Israel and Lebanon signed a new Trilateral Framework: Israeli withdrawal is now explicitly conditioned on the verified disarmament of Hezbollah by the Lebanese Armed Forces.
- Hezbollah has rejected the framework outright and warned of civil war if the army tries to disarm it; implementation has barely begun.
- The UN peacekeeping force UNIFIL ends operations on December 31, 2026 and withdraws through 2027 — leaving the Blue Line without its international buffer for the first time in nearly five decades.
Contents
- The 2024 Lebanon ceasefire: 60 days that never settled
- The June 2026 framework: disarmament first, withdrawal later
- The Blue Line, UNIFIL and the end of peacekeeping
- The disarmament question: can the Lebanese Army do it?
- What to watch
The Lebanon ceasefire story is one of agreements that keep being signed and keep not holding. The latest — a June 2026 framework signed in Washington — tries to fix the flaw that doomed its predecessors: it makes Israeli withdrawal conditional on Hezbollah actually being disarmed, rather than on promises that it will be. Hezbollah has rejected the deal.
The 2024 Lebanon ceasefire: 60 days that never settled
The first ceasefire came on November 27, 2024, brokered by the United States and France to end more than a year of fighting that had run in parallel with the Gaza war. Under its terms, Israeli forces would gradually withdraw from southern Lebanon over 60 days, Hezbollah would pull its fighters and weapons north of the Litani River, unauthorized military facilities south of the river would be dismantled, and a U.S.-chaired monitoring mechanism would oversee implementation.
It did not survive its first week intact. On the second day of the truce, Israel struck what it called a Hezbollah rocket-storage facility and opened fire on vehicles approaching the southern zone; Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah accused Israel of attacking returning border villagers, and the Lebanese army accused Israel of multiple violations. Israel's then chief of staff, Herzi Halevi, warned: "Any deviation from this agreement will be enforced with fire."
The 2024 deal was built on UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war. But as the UK House of Commons Library notes, fighting flared again in 2026, and the 2024 agreement's core bargain — Hezbollah disarms, Israel leaves — was never fulfilled.
The June 2026 framework: disarmament first, withdrawal later
The response was the Trilateral Framework Between the United States, Israel, and Lebanon, signed on June 26, 2026 in Washington. According to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies' summary of the framework's 14-point text and its security annex, the deal goes considerably further than a conventional ceasefire.
Withdrawal is now conditional on performance, not promises. The Israel Defense Forces will redeploy in phases, synchronized with the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) taking control of territory and the verified disarmament of Hezbollah and other non-state armed groups. Implementation runs through pilot zones — starting with a South Litani pilot zone — following four steps: clearing weapons and infrastructure, verification by a mutually agreed third party, a "highly qualified" LAF force assuming sole control, and reconstruction with international assistance. A 24/7 military coordination mechanism manages deconfliction and verification.
Beyond the military mechanics, Lebanon commits to restoring the state's monopoly on force "everywhere in Lebanon," with U.S. assistance conditioned on verifiable milestones; Israel declares it has no territorial ambitions and that its presence ends upon verified disarmament; and the United States is tasked with mobilizing international reconstruction support — which the World Bank estimates at roughly $11 billion, fenced off from non-state groups through legal anti-diversion measures.
Hezbollah's answer was a flat rejection. The group vowed continued "resistance" and warned that enforcing the deal could push Lebanon toward civil war. Its Shiite ally, the Amal Movement, denounced the framework as unbalanced. As FDD's analysis puts it, the agreement fixes the old sequencing — Israeli redeployment is benchmarked to concrete Lebanese actions, including collecting heavy weapons and dismantling military sites — but it "requires Lebanon to do what it remains unable or unwilling to do: restrain and disarm Hezbollah."
"Any deviation from this agreement will be enforced with fire." — Herzi Halevi, then IDF chief of staff, November 2024
The Blue Line, UNIFIL and the end of peacekeeping
The Blue Line — the UN-demarcated line of withdrawal between Israel and Lebanon, not an agreed international border — has been monitored since 1978 by the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL). Created under Security Council Resolutions 425 and 426 and expanded after the 2006 war under Resolution 1701, UNIFIL's mandate was to confirm Israeli withdrawal, help the Lebanese army assert control in the south, and monitor the cessation of hostilities. It was never, under its mandate, responsible for disarming Hezbollah.
That mission is ending. In August 2025, the Security Council voted unanimously to renew UNIFIL's mandate for a final time, until December 31, 2026, under Resolution 2790. Troops will draw down through 2027, with most uniformed personnel gone by mid-2027 and positions handed to the Lebanese army. A smaller UN mission, the Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO), will remain to monitor the 1949 armistice.
The end of UNIFIL removes the international buffer at exactly the moment the new framework needs verification most. The June 2026 framework specifies no role for the UN or UNIFIL. France and Italy have floated a multinational mission, with EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas saying in September 2026 that ten EU member states were willing to contribute. Israel opposes any new force: its UN ambassador said in August 2026 that such missions "could provide Hezbollah with a platform to rebuild its strength" in southern Lebanon. China and Russia, by contrast, have backed maintaining a UN presence along the Blue Line.
Complicating the handover, UNIFIL's head of mission has said handing over some sites may be "very difficult," since around half of the force's positions sit in Israeli-controlled territory.
The disarmament question: can the Lebanese Army do it?
Everything in the framework funnels into one question: will the Lebanese Armed Forces disarm Hezbollah? The LAF has said it lacks the capacity; FDD's assessment is blunter — it lacks the social legitimacy, and therefore the will, to confront the group. Hezbollah rejects disarmament and prefers an unconditional Israeli withdrawal first.
There are narrow reasons for cautious optimism. In January 2026, the LAF claimed "effective control" south of the Litani River. The pilot-zone model is designed to make enforcement achievable in small, defined areas rather than nationwide. And the framework's conditionality gives Beirut something previous deals did not: Israeli withdrawal, reconstruction money and military aid that arrive only when disarmament is verified, not when it is promised.
But the structural problem is unchanged since 2006. Hezbollah is simultaneously an armed group, a political party with cabinet-level influence, and a social-services network. Disarming it by force risks the civil war its leaders have warned about; not disarming it leaves Israel's stated reason for staying.
What to watch
Three indicators will show whether the framework is real or paper. Pilot zones: whether the South Litani pilot zone moves from text to clearing operations — and whether verification happens in real time or after the fact. UNIFIL's exit: the December 2026 end of operations and the mid-2027 withdrawal will test whether the LAF can hold positions, including those in Israeli-controlled areas, without a vacuum opening. The army's first test: the moment the LAF is asked to seize a Hezbollah weapons cache against the group's will is the moment the framework's core assumption gets tested.
