Middle East & Africa | A ceasefire in the Middle East

Israel and Hizbullah strike a fragile deal to end their war 

Joe Biden’s last roll of the dice on peace in the Middle East

A man inspects the damage at the site of an overnight Israeli airstrike that targeted the Shayyah neighborhood in Beirut's southern suburbs on November 26, 2024
Photograph: AFP
|DUBAI

IT HARDLY LOOKED as if a truce was imminent. The afternoon of November 26th saw Israel launch dozens of air strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs, some of the heaviest bombardment this year. Then the Israeli army told people to evacuate the heart of the Lebanese capital, an area where Hizbullah, a Shia militia, has no armed presence. Traffic jams stretched for kilometres as panicked residents fled.

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