A ceasefire between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah started early Wednesday, after the sides reached a deal following weeks of U.S.-mediated talks.

The development is a first step toward ending a conflict that’s killed thousands of people and forced more than a million to flee their homes. The U.S. hopes it calms the Middle East and paves the way toward fresh peace initiatives for the Gaza Strip, where conflict between Israel and Hamas continues to rage.

The 60-day truce began at 4 a.m. local time and there were no reports of early violations. There were some celebrations in Beirut, Lebanon’s heavily-bombed capital, and many civilians left for the south of the country, the epicenter of a conflict that began around 14 months ago and escalated in September when Israel stepped up attacks on Hezbollah.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his Lebanese counterpart Najib Mikati and U.S. President Joe Biden all made announcements late on Tuesday that a deal had been reached.

Hezbollah, an Iran-backed organization that’s one of the most powerful militias in the world, and Israel continued to attack each other in the hours before the agreement. Israel launched multiple strikes on Beirut, including central areas that had previously been left alone, and Hezbollah fired drones and missiles at Israeli territory.

Biden, speaking at the White House, said the truce would “end the devastating conflict.” The U.S., along with Egypt, Qatar and Turkey, he said, would make a new push for a ceasefire in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, another Iran-backed militant group.

Hezbollah agreed to a U.S.-drafted agreement days ago and a deal was clinched when Israel’s security Cabinet approved it after a meeting that began around 4 p.m. on Tuesday.

Oil and gold prices have fallen this week on optimism about a ceasefire, with investors predicting it will ease geopolitical tensions, including these between Israel and Iran, a major energy producer. The Israeli shekel has strengthened and prices for the government’s credit-default swaps, which some bond traders buy as insurance against a default, have dropped.

Netanyahu, in the face of opposition from some Israeli politicians who wanted to continue the campaign and crush Hezbollah, urged colleagues to accept the ceasefire. That would enable Israel, he said, to focus on the threat from Iran itself, though he didn’t say how. This year, Iran and Israel have traded direct fire twice.

Iran, for its part, welcomed the ceasefire and reiterated its support for Hezbollah, the most important of its anti-Israel and anti-U.S. proxy militias often known as the “axis of resistance.”

The Israeli leader also alluded to the strain of sustaining a war that involved sending ground troops into southern Lebanon in late September and bombing large areas of the country.

“The second reason is to give our forces a breather and replenish stocks,” Netanyahu said.

He vowed that Hezbollah, ideologically opposed to Israel’s existence, would not be allowed to regroup and Israel would respond forcefully to any violation of the truce.

“With the United States’ full understanding, we maintain full freedom of military action,” Netanyahu said.

The warring sides will now start negotiations for a permanent peace. Those will probably include talks over complicated issues such as the demarcation of the Israel-Lebanon border and whether Hezbollah, which is also a political party, can maintain its military forces.

The truce came after one of Biden’s main Middle East envoys, Amos Hochstein, shuttled between Israel and Lebanon in an effort to end the conflict before Donald Trump takes over the White House in January. Both Hezbollah and Hamas are designated terrorist organizations by the U.S. and many other countries.

While the agreement drew objections from some hardline nationalists in Israel, Biden cast it as a step to lasting stability in the region. Along with the effort to bring the conflict with Hamas to an end, he said the U.S. also wanted to normalize ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia — something the wars in Gaza and then Lebanon put on hold — and establish a “credible pathway” to a Palestinian state.

“I believe this agenda remains possible, and in my remaining time in office I’ll work tirelessly to advance this vision for an integrated, secure, and prosperous region, all of which strengthens America’s national security,” Biden said in a speech in the Rose Garden.

Still, there’s little appetite within Israel for a two-state solution. Netanyahu’s government, the most right-wing in Israel’s history, is against the idea, with some members saying Hamas’ attack on Oct. 7, 2023 proves an independent Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank would threaten Israel’s security.

Hamas fighters killed 1,200 people and took 250 hostage when they raided southern Israeli communities and a musical festival from Gaza. It was the worst day for Israel, in terms of deaths, since its creation as a state in 1948.

Israel’s subsequent offensive on Gaza has reduced much of it to rubble and killed around 44,000 people, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in the Palestinian territory. The United Nations has said many of the 2 million people in Gaza are facing starvation and that law and order has broken down, making it difficult for aid groups to distribute food and medicine.

Hezbollah started attacking Israel with drones and missiles on Oct. 8, a day after Hamas’ incursion, in solidarity with the Palestinian group. Israel retaliated by striking Hezbollah’s positions, mostly in southern Lebanon. The conflict was largely contained until September when Israel stepped up assaults on Hezbollah and assassinated most of its senior figures, including long-standing leader Hassan Nasrallah.

Hezbollah long insisted that it wouldn’t agree to a cessation of hostilities until fighting stopped in Gaza. But it changed its stance as it suffered severe military losses, with much of its stockpile of missiles and drones being used up or destroyed by Israeli attacks.

Around 3,100 people have been killed in Lebanon by Israeli strikes and the ground offensive in the past two months, while 1.2 million — more than a fifth of the population — have been displaced. About 50 Israeli troops have been killed in combat in southern Lebanon, while many civilians have died from Hezbollah fire over the past year.

Tens of thousands of people have been displaced from each side of the Israel-Lebanon border. Netanyahu has made enabling the return of northern Israelis to their homes a priority, something which drove his government to escalate operations against Hezbollah.

Many Israelis from the north are against the ceasefire and say they are still too scared to go back to their communities because Hezbollah remains a threat.

As part of the ceasefire, Hezbollah is meant to remove its fighters and weapons from the border region in southern Lebanon, with U.N. peacekeepers and the Lebanese military patrolling the area to ensure they don’t return. Hezbollah forces are supposed to move north of the Litani River, about 30 kilometers (19 miles) from the border.

That was the requirement of a U.N. resolution, known as 1701, that ended a 2006 war between the two sides.

The Israel Defense Forces are meant to move out of Lebanon, though it’s unclear how quickly they’ll do that.

One key obstacle to a ceasefire was Israel’s insistence on being able to continue striking Hezbollah positions if it thought the group was breaching the terms of any agreement.

Mikati, the Lebanese prime minister, said his government was committed to ensuring that won’t happen. It will, he said, strengthen the presence of the Lebanese army — which is separate from Hezbollah — in the south.

Netanyahu warned that the duration of the truce depends on developments in Lebanon. “If Hezbollah chooses to re-arm, we’ll attack,” he said.

Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir voted against the accord, the only member of the security Cabinet to do so, saying it was “a serious mistake.”

“A ceasefire at this stage will not return the residents of the north to their homes, will not deter Hezbollah and in fact will miss a historic opportunity to strike them hard and bring them to their knees,” he said.

Brian Katulis, a former U.S. official now at the Washington-based Middle East Institute, said the Middle East will remain on edge despite the deal between Hezbollah and Israel.

It “won’t easily translate into a deal to end the war in Gaza or quell broader tensions in the region because these conflicts have taken on a life of their own,” he said. “The core regional tensions remain high.”

-------

With assistance from Dan Williams, Kateryna Kadabashy and Youssef Diab.

©2024 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.