It’s only natural to want to applaud the extension of a ceasefire.
After all, who doesn’t want a ceasefire: a halt, if only temporary, to rockets falling, drones buzzing, and bombs exploding?
The problem is that the US State Department’s Friday announcement – following another round of negotiations between Israel and Lebanon in Washington – extending the ceasefire between the two countries is something of a fiction.
Why? Because it is not the government of Lebanon that decided to wage war against Israel, first on October 8, 2023, and then again on March 2, 2026. It is Hezbollah, the terrorist organization that owns a commanding stake in the country, and whom the rest of the shareholders either cannot – or do not want, out of sympathy – to control.
And it is Hezbollah that is firing drones at Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon, there to prevent the terrorist organization from once again setting up a base of operations directly on Israel’s border, with the expressed intent of, at some point, launching an October 7-style invasion of the Upper Galilee.
Israel and Lebanon are formally in a state of war, and have been since 1948, so talks between the governments, through their ambassadors in Washington, are not insignificant. But a ceasefire with Lebanon doesn’t mean much, since their armies aren’t fighting one another.
Hezbollah's 'mini state'
The problem, of course, is the mini-state inside Lebanon run by Hezbollah.
According to various media reports in Lebanon, one of the principles now under discussion as part of the ceasefire is placing decisions of “war and peace” solely in the hands of the Lebanese state – an implicit acknowledgment that those decisions are currently not in the hands of the Lebanese state at all, but in Hezbollah’s.
And the very fact that the Lebanese presidency reportedly needed Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri to relay its ceasefire with Israel to Hezbollah for its approval underscores the central reality of this conflict: Hezbollah is not subordinate to the Lebanese state; the Lebanese state must consult with Hezbollah almost as though it were a parallel sovereign.
Hezbollah’s acquiescence is needed not only to end attacks on Israel and IDF forces in southern Lebanon, but also to disarm and give up attempts to rebuild southern Lebanon as a Hezbollah foothold. And the chances of that happening are roughly the same as Hamas disarming. In other words, not very good.
Which means that the cease-fire is a fiction. But it is by no means a harmless fiction, because it ties Israel’s hands.
Despite the IDF’s efforts to present the Lebanese drones as merely a tactical challenge that will eventually be overcome through technological means and operational adjustments, the drone attacks are significant.
First of all, they are killing and injuring soldiers – seven have been killed, and more than 50 injured since the current ceasefire was announced on April 17.
Second, the drone attacks make it more challenging for the IDF to operate in southern Lebanon. And thirdly, they sap the morale of soldiers, reservists, and their families, who cringe at the thought that their loved ones are sitting ducks to a weapon Israel has so far been unable to neutralize.
They aren’t sitting ducks. The IDF is figuring out ways to defend against the drones, though – as the casualties indicate – those defenses are not foolproof. But the psychological impact cannot be discounted.
Israel needs to fight back hard against the drones, and there are different ways to do it.
One is through the development of technological antidotes, though that will take time. Another is to strike the entire production, supply, and storage chain of Hezbollah’s drone capabilities throughout Lebanon.
And the third is, as former National Security Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat argued Friday in Makor Rishon, through disproportionate use of force.
Israel, he suggested, needs to “create a disproportionate equation making clear that the use of explosive drones against us will trigger Israeli strikes in Beirut.”
The logic behind this approach is straightforward: the current restrictions on Israel’s use of force in Lebanon effectively take Beirut out of the game and establish a maximum price Hezbollah knows it can tolerate.
That, Ben-Shabbat argued, enables Hezbollah to exploit one of its key advantages – explosive drones – while preventing Israel from fully using its air-power superiority.
Ceasefire restricts Israeli options
So why hasn’t Israel acted in this way?
Because the cease-fire – the one US President Donald Trump is keen on preserving while exploring ways to end the war with Iran – restricts Israel’s military options.
Israel is not using its full force in response to these attacks. It is not sending fighter planes to strike Hezbollah strongholds in Beirut or in the Bekaa Valley because of the understandings surrounding this cease-fire.
One of Israel’s central concerns going forward is preserving its “freedom of action” in southern Lebanon. And rightly so. From Jerusalem’s perspective, the key issue is not merely stopping fire temporarily, but preventing Hezbollah from once again exploiting a lull in the fighting to rebuild its military infrastructure along the border.
During the height of the Oslo negotiations in the early 1990s, when talks with the PLO continued even as buses were exploding in Israeli cities, the oft-heard mantra was: “We will continue negotiations as if there is no terrorism, and fight terrorism as if there are no negotiations.”
Ben-Shabbat argues that a version of that same logic is now reemerging in Lebanon: negotiations with the Lebanese state proceeding even as Hezbollah continues attacking Israeli forces.
The problem then, as now, is that negotiations detached from the realities on the ground do not end terrorism. Rather, they create space for the terrorists to adapt, regroup, and strike again.