President Trump’s announcement on Thursday of a three-week extension to the cease-fire in Lebanon preserved a much-needed pause in a war that has killed nearly 2,500 people, displaced hundreds of thousands more, and destroyed homes, bridges and basic infrastructure.
The cease-fire has proved fragile. Though the large-scale Israeli bombing of recent weeks has halted, hostilities have simmered in persistent lower-level violence between Israel and the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group, Hezbollah.
Neither Israel nor Lebanon, despite having engaged in rare diplomatic talks in Washington, has commented publicly on the cease-fire extension. Hezbollah, which was not directly involved in the U.S.-mediated talks, has signaled that it would reluctantly abide by the truce, so long as Israel does.
The continued violence and the grudging acceptance of terms, analysts say, suggest the deal falls short of a true cease-fire and is vulnerable to unraveling altogether.
“This is not so much a cease-fire as a limited de-escalation,” said David Wood, a senior Lebanon analyst at the International Crisis Group, a conflict-prevention research organization.
Under the terms of the truce, as published by the U.S. State Department after it was first announced in mid-April, Israel has the right to act in self-defense “against planned, imminent, or ongoing attacks.” It has cited that as a justification for continuing to carry out strikes inside Lebanon. In recent days, its attacks have been concentrated in the south, a Hezbollah stronghold where the group has long exercised de facto control and enjoys broad support.
Israeli forces heavily bombarded the region during the war and now occupy a sizable stretch of territory there, where they are carrying out widespread demolitions.
On Saturday, the Israeli military said that overnight it had struck rocket launchers outside the Israeli-occupied zone in southern Lebanon and renewed its warning to displaced families not to approach areas under its control.
Israel also said it had killed more than 15 Hezbollah militants over the weekend, including four in Yohmor, a town in southern Lebanon. It said two projectiles were launched from Lebanon toward northern Israel, one that was intercepted and another that fell in an open area.
Hezbollah, for its part, has continued attacks on Israeli forces and says it has downed Israeli drones.
Ali Fayyad, a lawmaker affiliated with Hezbollah, said in a statement on Friday that the three-week cease-fire extension did not hold “any meaning” because of continued Israeli attacks. It was the group’s first public response since the extension was announced.
Mr. Fayyad criticized the agreement for “imposing no obligations, even minimal ones, on the Israeli side.”
Lebanon’s cease-fire is deeply linked to broader tensions with Iran, Mr. Wood said, meaning that if talks between Washington and Tehran were to collapse, Lebanon could quickly become a flashpoint.
“One factor that makes the truce incredibly shaky is that it’s largely contingent on President Trump’s attention,” Mr. Wood said. “President Trump forced through this cease-fire largely because he didn’t want continued fighting in Lebanon to scupper negotiations with Iran.”
The current standoff echoes the dynamics of the last nominal cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah, which took effect in late 2024. Israel continued striking Hezbollah infrastructure and killing its fighters and commanders in an effort to degrade the group’s military capacity.
Hezbollah largely held its fire. After the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran began, the group fired rockets into northern Israel, surprising many by showing that it still retained the ability to fight.
By continuing its attacks under the current cease-fire, “Hezbollah wants to establish the principle that as long as there’s Israeli occupation in Lebanon, that they have a right to fight back,” said Paul Salem, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Middle East Institute.
They also want to find a more durable truce than the current arrangement, Mr. Salem said. With the help of Iran, they want “to put pressure on the U.S. and Israel to get a full cease-fire,” similar to what they got in wars in 1996 or 2006, he added.
Israel’s latest moves in Lebanon mirror tactics it has used against Hamas in Gaza, experts say, including occupying territory and continuing deadly strikes and military operations despite an officially declared cease-fire. Israeli officials have said the destruction of towns and villages along the Lebanese border forms part of an intentional strategy modeled on its onslaught on Gaza.
On Friday, Israel appeared to intensify its campaign in Lebanon, warning residents to evacuate the southern town of Deir Aames before carrying out airstrikes. The town sits outside the six-mile-deep “forward defense line” that Israel said it would hold during the cease-fire, raising concerns that its operations were expanding.
The Israeli military said that, a day earlier, Hezbollah had fired rockets from the area toward northern Israel.
Many of those still displaced from southern Lebanon say the cease-fire has brought little tangible relief. Kamil Mohamed Mansour fled the village of Tallouseh after the war began, and now lives in a tent at a stadium in Beirut after losing his home, savings and farmland.
“What cease-fire are you talking about?” Mr. Mansour, 78, asked on a recent afternoon. “I have lost everything and am sitting here alone.”
