Israeli Defence Minister: "There is no ceasefire in Lebanon"
At 07:00 GMT on Monday morning, Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel Katz issued a joint order. The Israeli military was to strike Beirut’s southern suburbs. Residents of Dahiyeh began evacuating immediately. Those of us covering the invasion of Lebanon are aware that there is functionally no ceasefire, but by the end of Monday, Israel’s Defence Minister would confirm it.
Before publicly dismissing the ceasefire, Katz had issued a statement on Beirut. There would be “no calm in Beirut” if Hezbollah kept responding to Israeli attacks. The Litani River zone would be placed under Israeli military control, “free of weapons and terrorists.” The day before, Israeli forces had seized Beaufort Castle north of the Litani, their deepest push into Lebanon in over 25 years.
Within hours, Israel had called off the attack, while Iran called off negotiations with the USA in response to the ongoing Israeli attacks by Israel.
Iran had issued a warning that northern Israel would need to evacuate if any strike on Beirut was launched, according to Israeli media, the warning reportedly alarmed the Israeli government. By 6 o’clock, Donald Trump had chimed in, claiming he had persuaded Israel to call off the strikes, it appears the call to cancel the strikes was made before Trump’s claimed intervention became public.
Inside Israel, the decision to call off the strike caused some political turmoil, with ministers like Itamar Ben Gvir publicly scolding Netanyahu for cancelling the plans.
That evening, the Defence Minister Israel Katz appeared on Channel 14, Israel’s right-wing television channel, speaking in Hebrew. “There is no ceasefire in Lebanon,” he said. Netanyahu, separately, confirmed the Israeli military would continue operating in southern Lebanon “as planned.”
This is a statement that has appeared across Israeli media since it was uttered, but has been almost entirely absent from international outlets. While it is clear to anyone observing that the ceasefire is long over, most major outlets continue to discuss the deal, even though now Israel’s own Defence Minister has stated clearly that they do not believe the deal is in effect.
This was not the first time. A ceasefire was declared on April 17, but Israeli strikes and military operations continued almost immediately. Lebanon’s death toll since March 2 now stands above 3,400.
The day the Israeli minister confirmed the ceasefire was not in place, we saw a bizarre piece of misinformation in real time. CNN’s live feed gave us the conflicting reports that the ceasefire was on and off. Somehow, the U.S. outlet reported on the ceasefire being in place, on the same page where they covered an Israeli minister denying it. We doubt this would happen had the signatory been anyone other than Israel.
The party conducting the strikes stated plainly, in the language spoken by the soldiers carrying them out, that there is no ceasefire in Lebanon.
Yet major international outlets continue to describe the ceasefire as though it remains meaningfully in effect. CNN managed to report both positions simultaneously on the same live page: that a ceasefire existed, and that Israel’s Defence Minister had publicly denied one existed.
We have searched far and wide, and cannot find an outlet who will state that Israel has dismissed the ceasefire, despite that being an operational and rhetorical fact.
If any other state openly declared a ceasefire void while continuing military operations inside a neighbouring country, most Western outlets would describe the ceasefire as collapsed. Israel continues to receive markedly different framing.