The ceasefire was always only a truce. It was obvious to anyone who had been watching the gradual erosion of the April truce between Israel and Lebanon in past six weeks. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz, in a statement together, instructed the Israel Defense Forces to resume attacks on the Dahiyeh quarter in Beirut, which is Hezbollah's operational hub in the city's south suburbs, on Monday morning. The announcement came after weeks of an unusual show of restraint by Jerusalem, not self-imposed but insisted upon by Washington as a diplomatic chip to play against the nuclear talks with Tehran. That's a chip that's spent.

The Israeli decision was portrayed as a response to many ceasefire violations by Hezbollah, such as the use of drones and rockets targeting northern Israeli cities and IDF forces deployed in Lebanon. That’s a correct interpretation. It doesn't mention, for example, that Washington had been restraining Israel, or that the nuclear negotiations with Iran had been stalled past every proclaimed deadline, or that when it was clear that no imminent deal was on the horizon, the logic of further restraint faded.

The resumption of strikes on Beirut was actually authorized by top U.S. officials, the Jerusalem Post reports, out of the expectation that the Iran nuclear talks would have been resolved weeks ago, and as such the U.S. was willing to put its foot down on Lebanon. That's a false premise. Now Lebanon is reaping the consequences of a misjudge in a diplomatic blip several time zones away.

On Monday the US made its stance clear, an official told the Jerusalem Post that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had proposed a framework to Netanyahu and Lebanese President Joseph Aoun which called for Hezbollah to stop all attacks in exchange for Israel's refraining from further escalation in Beirut. The structure was fairly sound in theory. The issue is that Hezbollah never was part of this.

The two issues, the Lebanon file and Iran's nuclear talks, were proceeding on separate tracks, Rubio had carefully stated from New Delhi in late May. He pointed out that Hezbollah, which he described as "100 percent Iranian proxy," is the main impediment to any sustainable peace, and distinguished between it and the Lebanese government, which he said was "doing a good job of engaging constructively. The distinction is important in the diplomatic sphere, but is of little importance on the ground in Dahiyeh, where bombs do not adhere to the distinction of tracks they are supposed to avoid crossing.

It's important to see the bigger picture in the region to appreciate how Monday's announcement fell. The ceasefire that went into effect on April 16 will expire in 2026 and was a ten-day truce brokered by the United States, which was extended three more weeks by President Donald Trump on April 23, and has been running the clock deep into June. It was never a settlement, but rather a temporary structure. It was built on the hope that momentum from the Iran war ceasefire would carry over into a Lebanon peace deal. Unfortunately, that hope was cut short by reality.

In early April, when the Iran–US ceasefire first went into effect, Tehran had already attempted to take advantage of Hezbollah's omission from the truce, writing, for instance, that Iran's Foreign Minister that Washington would have to "choose between ceasefire and continued war via Israel it cannot have both. That's Iran's first offer. Israel's patience had worn thin by the time it was six weeks into the nuclear negotiations that still had not concluded and Hezbollah was still firing.

The military situation was deteriorating for days on the ground prior to Monday's announcement. On the morning of May 31, the IDF captured the famous 900-year-old Beaufort Castle in Southern Lebanon an effort to destroy Hezbollah infrastructure and neutralize terrorists in a bid to expand operational control and eliminate direct threats to the Galilee Panhandle, the military said. The conquest of the castle was not just symbolic it overlooks both the Galilee and the south Lebanon region of Nabatieh, and it marks a major push by Israel into areas beyond the April ceasefire lines.

Israel had been gradually increasing its ground operations and is now seizing more territory in southern Lebanon while Hezbollah has persisted in its drone and rocket strikes against northern Israel and IDF positions. For all intents and purposes the April ceasefire had ceased to exist. In its place was a slow motion game of attrition punctuated by acts of violence just the sort of "fuzzy" warfare that does not serve the interests of anyone except the arms mongers and the rubble recruiters.

During this whole period, the Lebanese government has been in a truly tragic situation. Prime Minister Nawaf Salam has been very sincere in trying to pursue peace talks and direct Israel Lebanon negotiations were reportedly to continue this week as the bombs began to go off again. Lebanese President Joseph Aoun had tried to make peace proposals, which were answered evasively by Parliament Speaker, Nabih Berri, who is Hezbollah's closest political ally, who had said that he could "guarantee" Hezbollah's commitment to a ceasefire while placing the entire burden of de-escalation on Israel, even though Hezbollah had initiated the current round of fighting. It's the plight of the Lebanese state writ small: a government attempting to rule a nation in which the best-armed player reports to Tehran, not Beirut.

All this has had a cost human and economic and it is worth saying, before the conversation becomes completely lost in the geopolitics. According to the World Bank's assessment in March 2025, the total economic cost of the Lebanon conflict amounts to $14 billion, with $6.8 billion in damage to physical assets and $7.2 billion in economic losses due to decreased productivity and lost revenues. It was estimated that it was going to cost $11 billion to rebuild and recover, with $3 to $5 billion of that coming from public funds.

In 2024, Lebanon's real GDP fell by a staggering 7.1 percent, reversing from a no-conflict growth estimate of 0.9 percent, and the total decrease in GDP since 2019 is nearing 40 percent. This is a nation that was already fractured prior to the latest bout of violence. The Lebanese pound was 98 percent devalued since the financial collapse in 2019. Over a third of the population had fallen into poverty. Lebanon's crisis was not caused by the war, but rather the war served as accelerant to an existing fire.

Housing was hardest hit by the physical damage, with almost 100,000 units damaged valued at $3.2 billion. Commerce losses neared $2 billion and an estimated 166,000 people lost their jobs, creating an estimated loss of $168 million in earnings. Tourism was also hit, with losses estimated at $3.6 billion, after the industry had begun to make some progress in 2024, following the November ceasefire. With strikes now resuming in Beirut, investor confidence, which had taken a tentative hold, will take another setback.

To appreciate the implications of Monday's ruling for the Israeli economy as well: Israel's direct war expenses have risen to an estimated NIS 250 billion ($66 billion) since October 7, 2023. In 2024, Israeli GDP growth was as low as 0.5 percent, well below the pre-war expectations. Both sides in this war are not in an economically affluent position. Both are depleting capital human, financial, and diplomatic at a rate that exceeds its creation.

The reason why the present moment is so explosive is that there are several threads that are not yet resolved. The Iran nuclear deal still has yet to be signed. Lebanon peace talks continue as bombs continue to explode. Hezbollah is not only attacking Israel but is also, according to Rubio, calling for the downfall of Lebanon's government. Sources with knowledge of Iran negotiations said negotiations had been on the Strait of Hormuz, Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium and the possibility of releasing Iranian funds frozen in bank accounts, with nuclear issues to be negotiated after an agreement on a framework deal. That sequence leaves the largest of the questions unanswered.

The outside perspective and it matters is now one of jaded sympathy and baffled commentary. The cycle has come back around once again: ceasefire declared, ceasefire broken, escalation, international condemnation, repeat. Every round results in Lebanon having less, less infrastructure, less economy, less state capacity. Every cycle means an additional reduction in Hezbollah's above-ground capabilities, while leaving its ideology and Iranian supply routes untouched. The net result of each cycle is that Israel moves ahead a few points on the tactical board and that, on any objective reckoning, Israel's northern border is left unresolved.

Meanwhile, the Lebanese army, struggling to establish itself as a force capable of eventually taking over the security vacuum vacated by Hezbollah after its disarmament, had already said that continued Israeli strikes could force it to suspend cooperation with the committee that monitors the current truce something that is hardly being taken seriously in the hot immediate news of a strike and a body count. The final institutional fence is taken away when Lebanon's own army pulls out of the ceasefire control mechanisms.

What doesn't have a clear answer in Washington, Jerusalem or Beirut, is what is success? Hezbollah will not and has never been going to disarm following airstrikes on Dahiyeh. Lebanon's government has no political solution that could make disarmament appealing for Hezbollah or military means to force it. After two major wars and several campaigns, Israel will not be able to destroy Hezbollah with air raids. And the U.S. has more influence on the situation than any other outside party, and has been applying its leverage in large part to manage Israeli timelines, not pursuing any coherent end state.

The strikes in Beirut which took place on Monday are not surprising. They represent the next step in a situation in which no one has been wanting or able to pay the price of a true resolution. The bombs that fell today on Dahiyeh are, in the truest sense of the word, the reverberations of decisions (and indecisions) taken in Washington, Tehran and Jerusalem in the past two years. As always Lebanon absorbs the sound.