Is the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire over before it began? - The Latest

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0:40It's really difficult. I mean, you still have a million people displaced, many living on the streets. People are just trying to figure out, you know, where safety is. The text of the ceasefire agreed last night so that Hezbollah must stop firing at Israel. Hezbollah has rejected that. Donald Trump is forced to pay attention to what's happening in Lebanon because it could upset the the peace negotiations with Iran. And Lebanese people sort of have to contend with trying to figure out for themselves. From the Guardians today in Focus, this is The Latest with me, Lucy Hoth.

1:11There's been talk today about a ceasefire brokered by the US between Israel and Lebanon. Will Christou, you are our Guardian reporter in Beirut. So you're right across this. I mean, I think the word ceasefire has become sort of divorced from any meaning given how many we've had and how little they seem to mean in practice. So is this a ceasefire at all? And if so, what are its terms? Not a ceasefire, unfortunately, like you said, ceasefires are on sale. We had announcement of a ceasefire at around two in the morning Beirut time. And then we had a rejection of the ceasefire at around 3pm Beirut time.

1:52In the meantime, we had airstrikes and firing from Hezbollah and Israel on both sides. So no ceasefire. Yeah, so doesn't sound like any ceasefire at all. The crucial sort of player in this was Hezbollah, the Iran backed group, and they had made it clear that they wouldn't accept what they described as a partial ceasefire, which was what it seemed to be on the table. What were some of the things that they objected to because it sounds like it was very favorable to Israel's demands. Yeah so the text of the ceasefire agreed last night said that Hezbollah must stop firing at Israel, Israeli troops and return Israel wouldn't fire on Beirut and Hezbollah has rejected that.

2:36They said they want to see the full withdrawal of Israeli troops in southern Lebanon and they want a complete ceasefire and they've actually said that any firing on Lebanese villages would be met with fire on northern Israel. Yeah, and as you say, the strikes on southern Lebanon have continued in the last 24 hours. Huge numbers of people we know have been forced to leave their homes. Those evacuations continue. So this huge humanitarian impact. And Israel saying that they want to maintain quite a substantial presence of troops in southern Lebanon and create these sort of zones that I think are reminiscent of what's happened in Gaza.

3:16And that is something that not just Hezbollah, but Lebanon is opposed to, right? Yeah, exactly. Israel has set up what they call the yellow line, the same thing they set up in Gaza, and that's about 600 square kilometers that they occupy in southern Lebanon. And they're advancing further. And the Israeli defense minister, Israel Kat, says that Israel wants to have the ability to continue to, quote, dismantle terrorist infrastructure and is not ruling out any further strikes, even on big cities like Beirut, if there was any military offensive action taken against them. So that basically feels like we're back to a pre-war situation where attacks could happen at any time.

3:58Exactly. And that's not a ceasefire. A ceasefire where one party is continuing to fire. It doesn't work. We had that for 15 months in Lebanon and Hezbollah has categorically said that they're not going to return to that. And Will, you've been doing some really harrowing reporting this week, because there have been in the space of a week, three attacks on Lebanese hospitals in the south of Lebanon by Israeli forces. 150 people have been wounded, the majority of the medics who have stayed in hospitals, despite the very, very difficult conditions in terms of working. There are several people who've been killed in those strikes, those hospitals containing women and children.

4:37You've been talking to one of the directors of one of the hospitals that's been struck. What sense have you got from that conversation? Yeah, I mean, he said it was a regular day at the hospital. And to give some context, the hospital that was attacked, Jabal Amal in Sur, it's a hospital that's become a refuge for many people because there's so many displaced people in this city who don't have access to medical care. So they've been relying on the hospital. The building next to it was struck on Monday. and the first floor of the hospital was destroyed. A lot of the emergency room was destroyed and 127 people were wounded, four killed.

5:11And what the hospital director said to me was that he just never expected it could be a target. And what is the Israeli justification for that? Because again, there are iterations of what happened in Gaza where Gaza hospitals were targeted because it was believed that there were Hamas tunnels underneath or that Hamas fighters were being shielded there. but that has been disproven in many cases. Is that the sort of line that Israel is trying to push here as it targets civilians in hospitals? So we asked the Israeli military why they attacked these three hospitals. For the case of Jabal Amman, they told us that Hezbollah was near the hospital and the hospital was affected, incidentally.

5:50That's a strike that wounded 127 people. In another hospital, they claimed that Hezbollah had taken over the hospital and that the hospital had transported Hezbollah fighters to the facility. The Lebanese Ministry of Health rejected that and said that the International Red Cross is present in there, the Lebanese Army is present in there, the Lebanese Red Cross is present in there, and invited media to come take a look for themselves to see if Hezbollah had indeed taken over the hospital. Yeah, yeah. And what is life like, would you say more broadly, I suppose particularly for people in southern Lebanon, but of course there have been missile strikes on Beirut as well, where you are.

6:28We've seen streams of people leaving the city in recent days. How difficult is life for people across Lebanon at the moment? Yeah, it's really difficult. I mean, you still have a million people displaced, many living on the streets. the other day on Tuesday when Israel said it was going to bomb the southern suburbs of Beirut. People were once again displaced, many of them for the second, the third time in a couple of months. And also people are just trying to figure out where safety is. There is a case of a young Christian woman student who was trying to return home in southern Lebanon when her car was struck by a drone strike and she was killed.

7:06So it's really unclear what the rules are. And Lebanese people sort of have to contend with trying to figure out for themselves with deadly consequences. Yeah. And living with that level of uncertainty and the risk, sort of the constant risk of strikes at any time. That strike on Monday or the evacuation order for southern Beirut was contentious, wasn't it? Because it's reported that Donald Trump was on the phone to the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, urging him not to go ahead with this and airing his frustrations, which I think speaks to this sense of a growing distance or a rift even between them as Trump desperately tries to find a way to end this war and to get out of it.

7:49And Netanyahu wants to achieve his war aims, presumably with the Israeli elections coming up later in the year. But is that all having an impact, do you think? Absolutely. I think, you know, the Iranians have very successfully linked the Lebanese front and Iran. And I've said unequivocally that if you want a ceasefire in Iran, you have to have a ceasefire in Lebanon. And it was Iranian pressure that caused Trump to call Netanyahu and call out the strikes on Beirut. And, you know, I think that Donald Trump is forced to pay attention to what's happening in Lebanon because it could upset the peace negotiations with Iran.

8:26Yeah. Well, Will, thank you so much and stay safe. Thanks for having me.

9:01and Annie Levespa and presented by me, Lucy Hoff. The senior producer was Rainer Mgovin.

9:10This is The Guardian.