Description
Dr Andreas Krieg, Associate Professor of Defence Studies at King's College, told MailOnline: 'This ceasefire deal is enormously fragile because the... threshold for Israel to say Hezbollah has broken the ceasefire is very, very low, and that means that Israel retains the right to restart any sort of hostile activity as soon as it sees Hezbollah moving south of the Litani River, infrastructure being used or potentially moving arms south.'It's possible that we get through 60 days without a major violation from Hezbollah or the IDF.
'I do think that Hezbollah has an interest as well to regroup, reassess the situation. Both sides have been hurting... and it was very much a battle of attrition where the IDF has not made any further progress.
'The last couple of days we've also seen that Hezbollah has been able to really hurt Israel and strike deeply inside Israeli territory. That capability is still there and that has also not been affected by the degradation.'
Dr Krieg assessed that both sides will use the ceasefire deal to build their victory narrative, while remaining poised to strike.
'This is a short term operational objective that has been achieved by Israel; the root cause of the conflict remains. It is, at best, a 'mowing the lawn' sort of outcome,' he said.
'Hezbollah has been able to sustain this to fight another day, and so as such, it's time bound.
'Eventually this deal will collapse, and it could happen very well happen in the next 60 days.'
| Period | 27 Nov 2024 |
|---|---|
| Held at | Daily Mail, United Kingdom |
Keywords
- Israel
- Hezbollah