As the US-Iran ceasefire was declared April 8, Hezbollah made an unexpected move. It stopped shooting.
The hiatus was several hours. Then Israel unleashed what it termed Operation Eternal Darkness, hitting 100 targets in Lebanon in ten minutes – central Beirut, southern suburbs, the Beqaa Valley, residential areas during rush hour. There were at least 357 victims who were killed. Lebanon referred to it as Black Wednesday. The Lebanese President called it a massacre and declared a national day of mourning. It was condemned by the UN Secretary General. Even Trump, in a rare moment of public pushback against Netanyahu, called him and said to “low-key it.”
Israel kept going anyway.
This is the main absurdity of the situation in Lebanon. There is a ceasefire between the US and Iran. Lebanon was to be a part of that ceasefire. Sharif of Pakistan said so, France said so. It was a precondition of any transaction by Iran. Then Netanyahu’s office announced that Lebanon was never part of it. Trump backed him. And the bombs kept falling on a country that has now lost more than 2,000 people since March 2, with over a million citizens displaced from their homes.
A War Within a War
Lebanon was not supposed to end up here. Since November 2024, a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah had existed. Israel kept attacking Lebanon nearly every day following such an agreement, killing 500 individuals, including 127 civilians. Hezbollah broke the ceasefire by reconstructing its military facilities. Both parties were technically at peace and practically at war, a state that Lebanon has decades of experience with.
Hezbollah made a decision when the US and Israel attacked Iran on February 28 and assassinated Supreme Leader Khamenei. On March 1, the Secretary-General of Hezbollah Naim Qassem pledged to strike back, indicating that the group would not abandon the field of honor and resistance. The first time since the 2024 ceasefire, two days later, rockets landed in northern Israel. The Hezbollah stance was that it was a defensive move, a reaction to more than a year of Israeli assaults and not an official joining of the Iran war.
Israel’s position was simpler. A target is a target.
The policy was outlined by Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz: where there are terror and missiles, there are no houses and no inhabitants, and the IDF will rule the security area to the Litani River. Troops were on the ground. In southern Lebanon, there are five divisions in operation. The mentioned objective is to drive Hezbollah north of the Litani and create a buffer zone. The implied reasoning, evident in the targeting, is more of an all-inclusive destruction of the Hezbollah infrastructure no matter who is next to it.
The Talks That May Not Mean Anything
On April 14, the Lebanese and Israeli ambassadors had a meeting at the US State Department in Washington, the first face-to-face meeting between the two nations since 1993. Attending the meeting was Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who termed the occasion as historic.
Historic is one word for it. Complicated is another.
The stance of Israel going into the negotiations was made very clear by its ambassador: no talk of a ceasefire with Hezbollah. The talks are about disarming Hezbollah and establishing diplomatic relations. The case of Lebanon is also rather clear: it is willing to have a ceasefire with no conditions, since it simply cannot afford to provide what Israel is seeking. President Joseph Aoun of Lebanon declared that a ceasefire would be the only way out with direct negotiations to follow, not when bombs are falling.
Hezbollah was not willing to be involved in the discussions and termed the move by the Lebanese government to participate as a free offer to the enemy. Secretary-General Qassem vowed to continue fighting “until the last breath.” Hundreds of demonstrators marched outside government headquarters in Beirut waving Hezbollah flags, and others with signs reading whoever shakes hands with Israel is not Lebanese.
This is the structural trap. The Lebanese government cannot deliver Hezbollah’s disarmament because Hezbollah is not under its control. The group has its own weapons, its own foreign policy, its own chain of command running straight to Tehran. Asking Beirut to disarm Hezbollah is like asking a landlord to repaint a tenant’s apartment. The authority just does not exist. A previous ceasefire in 2024 included an agreement that the Lebanese government would prevent Hezbollah from operating against Israel. Israel bombed Lebanon almost daily afterward anyway.
The Iran Connection Nobody Wants to Discuss
The issue of Lebanon is not only a bilateral issue between Israel and Hezbollah. The thread that continues to tug at the larger ceasefire between the US and Iran.
The US-Iran track and the entire cease-fire is under threat, one analyst told TIME, because of Israel insisting on continuing its operations against Hezbollah. It is quite obvious that the two are closely knit together in the eyes of Iran.
This was made clear by Iran. In its 10-point plan, it demands that all assaults on its allies, including Hezbollah, should be stopped as a prerequisite to any lasting agreement. The parliament speaker of Iran indicated that no negotiations would take place without a Lebanon ceasefire. The April 8 attacks by Israel were met by Iran halting the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, and oil markets were back in the volatile position within hours of the ceasefire announcement.
According to Trump, Israeli attacks would have a destabilizing effect on the fragile ceasefire between the US and Iran. He advised Netanyahu to downplay. The next day Netanyahu declared negotiations with Lebanon and continued to bomb.
You can read all about the dynamic in that sequence. The Iran ceasefire must stick in the US. Israel must continue to wage war against Hezbollah. Netanyahu has figured that Washington requires him more than it can afford to restrain him, and thus far that has been the case. The April 8 strikes claimed 357 lives. They attracted an unusual Trump reproach and left nothing on the ground.
Who Is Actually Paying
More than 2,000 people have been killed in Lebanon since March 2. Over a million have been displaced, roughly 20% of the country’s entire population. Lebanon’s Health Ministry has documented 252 women, 166 children, and 88 health workers among the dead. These are not incidental casualties of a precise military campaign. They are the cost of a war being fought in one of the most densely populated countries in the Middle East, against a militia that operates inside civilian infrastructure.
The Israeli military argues it is targeting Hezbollah command centers, weapons stores, and military infrastructure. Lebanese authorities argue the strikes are not targeted. Both things can be partly true simultaneously, which is what makes this kind of war difficult to end and immensely devastating to live through.
The mountain ridge above Kiryat Shmona is littered with fragments of shot-down drones. A few still get through. Israeli towns in the north are not fully safe. None of this, on either side, is close to over.
The talks in Washington were described as historic. They may well be. But Hezbollah is not at the table, the bombs have not stopped, and the Lebanese civilians caught between an armed group they did not choose and a military campaign they cannot stop are the ones absorbing the price of a negotiation that has not yet agreed on its own terms.
