The truce between Israel and Hizbollah declared on 16 April was welcome news, but in reality, fighting has never fully stopped. Exchanges of fire actually intensified shortly after U.S. President Donald Trump announced a three-week ceasefire extension on 23 April, on the margins of U.S.-hosted negotiations between Israel and Lebanon – the first such direct talks in more than 40 years. Over the ensuing days, Israel hit several targets in Lebanon, and Hizbollah claimed responsibility for several strikes on Israeli positions. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had ordered Israeli troops to “vigorously attack” the Shiite party-cum-militia in Lebanon, which is backed by Iran. If matters proceed along their present course, full-scale hostilities could return. 

There may still be a window to halt the slide into a new round of all-out fighting and instead work toward a lasting cessation of violence that buys time to find a more durable solution. To that end, an overlooked and underused tool could prove useful: the monitoring mechanism created by the previous ceasefire agreement, brokered by the U.S. in November 2024. The U.S. has chaired the monitoring body, but without throwing enough weight behind it to enable it to perform a meaningful role in making military action the exception rather than the rule. 

Turning the monitoring mechanism into something more muscular would be a tall order. During the first year of the post-November 2024 ceasefire, Israel carried out some 12,000 attacks on what it claimed were Hizbollah assets or fighters posing an imminent threat, leaving nearly 350 Lebanese dead. With a single exception, Hizbollah refrained from responding to these attacks. But on 2 March – two days after the U.S. and Israel launched a war with Iran and killed the Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei – Hizbollah fired on Israel, which answered with a ferocious air and ground assault on Lebanon. Some 2,500 Lebanese have been killed and well over a million displaced; Israeli casualties stand at two civilians and nearly twenty military personnel. 

The parties continue to exchange fire, with the Israeli military claiming its operations are necessary to protect northern Israel and the troops it has deployed in Lebanon, and Hizbollah claiming that it is pushing back and vowing to eject Israel from Lebanese territory. While the latter goal is clearly beyond the group’s capacities, especially after Israel’s punishing strikes diminished them in late 2024, these dynamics threaten to scupper any hope of making the ceasefire stick, particularly if Hizbollah strikes on communities in northern Israel claim civilian casualties. 

To prevent such an escalation spiral, the U.S. should lean on Israel to take its concerns and complaints to the monitoring mechanism before resorting to military action, and actors with channels to Hizbollah (such as its close ally Nabih Berri, head of the Amal movement, the second party in Lebanon’s “Shiite duo”, as well as ministers in the Lebanese government) should do the same with Hizbollah. The mechanism would then evaluate whether verified activities are escalatory in nature and, if they are, direct that they stop. For example, in the face of evidence presented by Israel, it could conclude that Hizbollah must stop building up assets near civilian areas or preparing cross-border rocket and drone launches. Similarly, it could assess that Israel must stop bulldozing villages or attacking civilians indiscriminately. If President Trump is prepared to be direct with Netanyahu, as he was shortly after announcing the original ceasefire, that may restrain Israel; at the same time, the U.S. should signal that it will only play such a restraining role as long as Hizbollah follows suit.

On top of support from Washington, certain adjustments to the monitoring mechanism could help it perform these tasks. Sources familiar with the body’s workings to date suggest that turning it into an effective forum for containing conflict and preventing renewed escalation would also require adding diplomatic personnel. These people could help the mechanism handle political challenges, complementing the technical expertise of its current chair, U.S. General Joseph Clearfield. Broadening representation by inviting at least one Middle Eastern country to join could also give the body increased visibility and legitimacy, thereby letting it gain traction.

Israel will likely resent having its freedom of action in Lebanon restricted by such an empowered mechanism, concerned that Hizbollah will use the respite to continue rearming and become a potent threat once more. But while that risk cannot be discounted, Hizbollah’s ability to replace munitions or acquire new weapons is constrained by Iran’s own situation – its finances and military reach having been diminished by the war and its loss of an ally in Syria after the fall of former President Bashar al-Assad. Meanwhile, continuing along the current path seems liable to cause recurrent disruptions to daily life in northern Israel and a steady, corrosive drip of casualties among Israeli troops deployed in Lebanon, with no credible scenario for a decisive outcome.

For their part, Lebanese opposed to Hizbollah will be frustrated to see the group survive a conflict that it instigated, against the will of the public, while the Lebanese people must live with the massive damage the fighting has caused. Yet neither the Lebanese government, which has committed to disarm the group but lacks the wherewithal, nor Israel, which for all its superiority in arms has not succeeded in defeating the group militarily, can offer an immediate solution that will benefit Lebanese more than making the current truce work. Should Beirut try to force a rushed disarmament by deploying the Lebanese army against the group, as some propose, there would be a significant risk of pushing Lebanon into a maelstrom of internal conflict that deepens the country’s political and sectarian divides. 

As the situation heats up in southern Lebanon, the U.S. may be tempted to throw in the towel and give Israel a green light to pummel Hizbollah and Lebanon further. That would be a mistake from both a humanitarian perspective and from the perspective of Washington’s own interest in reaching a deal with Iran. Better would be to invest more in quieting the Lebanon front. While a more durable ceasefire would leave Israel’s occupation untouched for the time being, it could allow displaced Lebanese who hail from areas not currently under Israeli control to return home, while residents of northern Israel could also go back to a semblance of normal life. To be sure, an extended truce lacks the appeal of a comprehensive peace deal that addresses the question of Hizbollah and sees Israel pull out of Lebanon. But for now, conditions for such an arrangement do not seem to be in place. In the meantime, the objective should be to save lives while reducing chaos and misery by acting within the sadly narrow limits of what is achievable.