The former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, who was present when the security council passed the resolution ending the last Israel–Hezbollah conflict, is skeptical that the newly agreed upon ceasefire between the two will hold up.
John Bolton, who served as the ambassador to the U.N. from 2005-2006, told the Washington Examiner he believes the likelihood that the new ceasefire deal, which is set to last for 60 days, will improve upon the agreement enacted in 2006 is “effectively zero.”
Hezbollah and Israel’s ceasefire commenced Wednesday morning after more than a year of direct military conflict. Hezbollah initiated the conflict on Oct. 8, 2023, when it began firing rockets and missiles into northern Israel, only one day after Hamas carried out the deadliest terrorist attack in Israel’s history.
Israel, which has conducted ground operations in Gaza since late October 2023, escalated its conflict with Hezbollah in September 2024. Since Israel’s escalatory moves, its troops have killed most of Hezbollah’s senior leaders, several of whom were in power during the 2006 monthlong war, in addition to decimating its ranks, though Hezbollah retains some capabilities still.
Hezbollah’s former Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, whom the Israelis assassinated in September 2024, infamously said in the aftermath of the 2006 war that he wouldn’t have approved the initial attack if he knew what Israel’s response looked like.
Hezbollah has embedded itself in southern Lebanon, where it’s closest to the country’s border with Israel. However, as a part of U.N. Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 war, Hezbollah was required to move north of the Litani River, which runs roughly parallel to the Israel-Lebanon border about 18 miles north of it. Hezbollah never did, even though the Lebanese Armed Forces and U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon were supposed to ensure they moved north.
“It was obvious at the time that it wasn’t going to work, that Hezbollah would not retreat north of the Litani River permanently, that the Lebanese Armed Forces would not be able to take Lebanon, that UNIFIL, the U.N. interim force peacekeepers, would be able to do their job any better than had,” Bolton explained. “And that’s been proven true.”
Like in 2006, Israel’s forces will withdraw from southern Lebanon, but Israel, the United States, and France, which helped broker the deal, are looking to ensure Hezbollah complies as well this time around.
This time, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to resume attacks on Hezbollah should the group violate the terms of the ceasefire agreement.
“With the United States’s full understanding, we maintain full freedom of military action. If Hezbollah violates the agreement and tries to arm itself, we will attack,” he said in a video released Tuesday on social media. “If it tries to rebuild terrorist infrastructure near the border, we will attack. If it launches a rocket, if it digs a tunnel, if it brings in a truck carrying rockets, we will attack.”
Bolton argued that Hezbollah is in a more dire position than Israel, and he said the U.S.-designated terrorist group is “hoping that they can, in 60 days, regroup and fortify their positions again, so that if the war does recommence, that they’ll be in a better position to resist the Israelis.”
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On Aug. 21, 2006, less than two weeks after the UNSC passed Resolution 1701, Bolton told reporters that if UNSC Resolution 1559, which declared the security council “gravely concerned at the continued presence of armed militias in Lebanon” and was passed in 2004, been “fully implemented, we probably wouldn’t be here today.”
“That’s why the return of security to southern Lebanon and preventing the resupply of Hezbollah is so important,” he said at the time.