The ceasefire was triggered. In Beirut we celebrate

At 3am Italian time (4am in Lebanon) the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah came into force. After more than a year of fighting, the truce is expected to end a war that has killed thousands of people and forced tens of thousands of residents in Israel and hundreds of thousands in Lebanon to flee their homes.

Immediately after the truce with Hezbollah came into force, the Israeli Army announced that it would maintain its military deployment in southern Lebanon and asked civilians in the area – “for their safety and that of their families” – to abstain from returning to their homes. “It is forbidden to approach villages that the defense forces have requested to evacuate or approach IDF troops in the region – said the spokesperson – For your safety and that of your families, please refrain from going to the area. We will inform you when it is safe to return.”

Just hours earlier, the Israel Defense Forces had issued evacuation orders for two buildings located south of Beirut, while Hezbollah claimed to have attacked with drones the residence of the head of the Israeli Air Force, Major General Tomar Bar, in Tel Aviv. The plan consists of three phases: an initial truce, followed by the withdrawal of the forces of the Lebanese Shiite group north of the Litani River; the complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon within 60 days; negotiations between the two countries to delimit their borders, which currently correspond to a line drawn by the United Nations after the 2006 war.

In Beirut people took to the streets to celebrate the ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel. The New York Times reports it. Some people fired shots into the air in a sign of joy. In some parts of the city, columns of smoke are visible as a reminder of the attacks carried out by Israeli forces in the previous twenty-four hours. But as the ceasefire approached, the attacks had diminished.

Hamas is also ready for a truce

Hamas is also “ready” for a ceasefire in Gaza. This was said by a senior official of the Islamist movement who welcomed the truce reached in Lebanon between its ally Hezbollah and Israel. “The announcement of the ceasefire in Lebanon is a victory and a great success for the resistance,” a member of the political office told AFP, “Hamas is ready for a ceasefire agreement and a serious agreement for the exchange of prisoners”.

“We have informed mediators in Egypt, Qatar and Turkey that Hamas is ready for a ceasefire agreement and for a serious agreement on the exchange of prisoners”, added the source who accuses Israel of “hindering any agreement”. A truce in November 2023, the only one since the war began, allowed the release of more than 100 hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. Since then, seven more hostages have been released alive during Israeli army operations. 97 remain in Gaza, 34 of whom have been declared dead by the army. More than 44,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s military retaliatory campaign in the Gaza Strip, most of them civilians, according to data from Hamas’s Ministry of Health, estimates deemed reliable by the United Nations.