Israel and Hezbollah agreed to a ceasefire in Lebanon that was due to take effect at 16:00 local time on Friday, even as fighting on the ground continued and the Israeli military said its operations would not stop until the threat it sees from Hezbollah is removed. Effie Defrin, the IDF spokesperson, said plainly: “We are in a ceasefire. The IDF is prepared to continue fighting if called upon to do so.”
The timing matters because the pause was supposed to begin after a night of heavy strikes in southern Lebanon that killed at least 18 people, according to Lebanon's health ministry, while Israel's military said four of its soldiers were killed. The same day, reported the agreement was scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. Eastern, a reminder that the ceasefire's start time was being watched closely in more than one time zone.
A senior US official quoted by the said the deal had been reached, and CBS News reported that three diplomats briefed on it said Israel and Hezbollah had agreed to a ceasefire in Lebanon. The basic terms described in the reports were simple: hostilities were to stop on all fronts, including Lebanon, under a memorandum of understanding signed by President Trump and Iran's president on Wednesday. A 60-day negotiation period on Iran's nuclear program had been expected to start Friday, but the fighting in Lebanon pushed that timetable off course.
That is where the gap opens. Hezbollah said it would continue attacking Israeli troops in response, said it would defend its land and people with courage, and accused the Israeli enemy of intensifying violations, including assaults and strikes on civilian areas. That clash between a declared ceasefire and continued threats from the ground is the real test now, because the reports describe an agreement on paper while both sides still describe the battlefield in the language of war.
For now, the question is not whether a ceasefire was announced. It was. The question is whether it was already holding in southern Lebanon once the clock reached 16:00, and whether the fighting that delayed the broader diplomatic timetable can really be pulled back after a day in which dozens were killed, four soldiers died and both sides still claimed they were acting in response.
