AILSA CHANG, HOST:
A 10-day ceasefire is now in effect to end the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. The deal was announced by President Trump on social media after he had separate phone calls with the leaders of both countries. Here to fill us in on all of that is NPR's Kat Lonsdorf who's in Beirut. Hi, Kat.
KAT LONSDORF, BYLINE: Hey, Ailsa.
CHANG: OK, so how did this deal come about?
LONSDORF: Well, whispers really started yesterday when the Israeli Cabinet met to discuss the possibility, but that meeting ended without an agreement. And then, late last night, Trump got on social media and posted that the leaders of Israel and Lebanon were going to speak today, which would have been historic if it had happened. Leaders of the two countries haven't directly spoken in more than 30 years, but that did not happen.
Instead, Trump called each of them individually and then announced the ceasefire, saying it would start at 5 p.m. Eastern - midnight here - and last for 10 days. Both Israel and Lebanon then came out and confirmed that. And then, Ailsa, Trump went even one step further. He invited both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Lebanese President Joseph Aoun to the White House for further talks in person. Whether that actually happens remains to be seen.
CHANG: OK. But, Kat, there is one party noticeably absent from everything that you just described, and that is Hezbollah. So...
LONSDORF: Yeah.
CHANG: What does...
LONSDORF: Yeah.
CHANG: ...Their absence mean for all of this, you think?
LONSDORF: Yeah. Hezbollah is the Iran-backed militia that operates in Lebanon. It kicked off this latest round of fighting by firing rockets into Israel in early March. It's a legitimate part of Lebanon's government, with several seats in Parliament, but its military wing often operates independently of the state. Hezbollah was very against the direct, low-level diplomatic talks between Israel and Lebanon in Washington earlier this week. And it's skeptical of a ceasefire with Israel. After Israel and Hezbollah reached a ceasefire back in 2024, after the last war, U.N. peacekeepers recorded more than 10,000 violations of that ceasefire, nearly all of them by Israel.
CHANG: Wow.
LONSDORF: And Israel is now occupying a huge swath of southern Lebanon and has said it will remain there. Hezbollah put out a statement saying that, quote, "the existence of Israeli occupation on our land grants Lebanon and its people the right to resist it." So it's unclear exactly how that will work within the context of a ceasefire.
CHANG: Wait. So will people who have been displaced in Lebanon be able to go home now with the ceasefire in place?
LONSDORF: Largely no. There are more than a million people displaced by this war right now in Lebanon. That's about a fifth of the population. Many are from the south. They were pushed out by Israel's military invasion. Here in Beirut, the whole - there are whole parking lots, you know, full of tents and people using the stadium here for shelter or sleeping in schools. Most of those people will not be allowed to return home yet, if ever.
Israel has demolished more than 40,000 homes in the south, according to Lebanese officials, taking over whole villages to create what it calls a security buffer zone to keep Hezbollah from firing rockets into Israel. It's not clear how long Israel intends to be there, but just today, Netanyahu said, quote, "we are not leaving."
CHANG: Well, this ceasefire is just part of several negotiations happening around the Middle East right now. Can you explain how does this agreement fit in with the ceasefire agreement the U.S. and Israel have with Iran?
LONSDORF: Iran has said that it wouldn't engage in further talks with the U.S. unless a ceasefire with Israel and Lebanon is in place. The current two-week ceasefire between the U.S. and Israel and Iran is set to expire in six days. So with this temporary ceasefire in place, that potentially helps keep talks between the U.S. and Iran moving. But both these ceasefires, like so many ceasefires, are shaky, so it's a bit of a house of cards.
CHANG: That is NPR's Kat Lonsdorf in Beirut. Thank you, Kat.
LONSDORF: Thanks. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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