Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire begins amid cautious hope in the Middle East
A ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah has begun.
Commencing at 2am UK time (4am local time) on Wednesday, the deal marks a notable step forward in diplomatic efforts in the region.
Previously such talks had floundered and failed to produce results – until this week.
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Explained: Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire
The deal, brokered by the US and France, was announced by President Joe Biden and will see an initial 60-day halt to the fighting that has claimed thousands of Lebanese lives and displaced over a million people.
It will also allow tens of thousands of people both sides of the border to return home.
Israel will gradually withdraw its forces from Lebanon as the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah leaves its positions in the region, and retreats north of the Litani River – which runs around 30km (20miles) north of the border.
The Lebanese army will take control of the territory to ensure Hezbollah doesn’t rebuild infrastructure there, with the country’s foreign minister Abdallah Bou Habib saying it could deploy at least 5,000 troops.
“This is designed to be a permanent cessation of hostilities,” Mr Biden said.
“Civilians on both sides will soon be able to safely return to their communities,” he added.
There appeared to be lingering disagreement over whether Israel would have the right to attack Hezbollah if it believed the militants had broken the agreement.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it was part of the deal but Lebanese and Hezbollah officials reportedly claimed otherwise.
“If Hezbollah breaks the agreement and tries to rearm, we will attack. For every violation, we will attack with might,” Mr Netanyahu said.
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Biden announcing ceasefire
Mr Biden said Israel had the right to quickly resume operations if Hezbollah did break the truce.
Within Israel, there was not total support for the ceasefire, with a poll conducted by Israel’s Channel 12 TV finding that 37% of Israelis were in favour of the ceasefire, and 32% against.
In Lebanon, people cheered on the streets as it was confirmed.
Israel bombards Lebanon right until ceasefire deadline
With less than half an hour to go until the ceasefire, Israel was still launching strikes on Beirut.
In the days and hours before, it had unleashed a wave of attacks across Lebanon, killing at least 42 people according to Associated Press.
Explosions lit up Lebanon’s skies in the day before the ceasefire with both Beirut and the port city of Tyre targeted by Israel as its cabinet discussed, and eventually voted for, the peace offer.
Smoke rises over Dahiyeh, Beirut, after an Israeli strike on Tuesday.
Pic: AP/Bilal Hussein
Rescuers search for victims in the aftermath of an Israeli airstrike in Beirut.
Pic: AP/Hassan Ammar
Israel also later launched strikes at the north Lebanon crossing with Syria for the first time, according to Lebanon’s transport minister Ali Hamieh.
The most recent deaths mean at least 3,760 people have been killed in Lebanon in the 13 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, which includes the two months since the ground invasion.
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Israel says it has killed more than 2,000 Hezbollah members. Lebanon’s Health Ministry says the war has displaced 1.2 million people.
In Israel, Hezbollah rockets have struck as far south as Tel Aviv and at least 75 people have been killed, more than half of them civilians.
But while the ceasefire will end hostilities in Lebanon, worries over the situation in Gaza continued.
Charities have repeated warnings of a humanitarian crisis in parts of the enclave and the United Nations Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said that the coming winter would lead to more deaths as well.
Meanwhile, Hamas is still holding dozens of hostages who have spent more than a year captive.
Elon Musk could be on track for a $1trn pay packet.
Tesla shareholders have approved the whopping financial package for the CEO – who’s already worth an estimated $491bn – if he hits a series of ambitious targets over the next 10 years.
But that $1trn figure (or £761,910,000,000) – which is both one thousand billion and one million million – is almost impossible to imagine for most people.
Even so, we have drilled down into the numbers and examined what you can do with a trillion US dollars – and it turns out, quite a lot.
Show me the money
Laid end to end, a trillion one-dollar bills would cover a distance of approximately 156 billion metres.
That could wrap around the equator 3,890 times, easily reach the sun from Earth (around 149.6 million km) or loop from Earth to the moon 405 times.
That many one-dollar notes could cover a massive area (roughly 10,339 km squared), meaning you could blanket nearly all of Lebanon or Jamaica in bills.
Spend it on sport
You could splash out on virtually all of the world’s major sporting leagues.
The clubs which make up the Premier League are relatively cheap ($30bn), and even when snapping up the UEFA Champions League clubs and the big five top divisions of Spain, Italy, Germany, and France, there’s still $858bn left in the kitty.
The four major US sports leagues for ice hockey, baseball, basketball, and American football (NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL) have a rough valuation of $544bn, according to Sportico.
But then add the IPL cricket league ($120bn) and F1 ($23.1bn) and Musk still has change from an estimated total spend of $829.7bn.
Elon Musk is in the money if he hits targets set by Tesla’s shareholders. File pic: AP
Take over Tesla’s rivals
He could buy up the top 15 largest publicly traded automakers (excluding Tesla) by market capitalisation.
They would include firms like Japan’s Toyota ($275bn), Chinese automaker BYD ($120bn), and luxury brands like Ferrari ($81bn) and Mercedes-Benz ($62bn), as well as BMW ($52bn), Volkswagen ($50bn) and Ford ($48bn).
But there would still be a little change left over; the total bill would be an eye-watering $992bn.
Buy up San Diego
He could buy up every single residential property in San Diego County – valued at a total of $1trn. Seattle is just slightly out of reach at $1.1trn, according to recent data from real estate firm Zillow.
But if he wanted to buy big – there is always Tennessee. The total value of homes in the US state is estimated at $957bn. Or there is Maryland, which at $1.01trn could be bought if he can find a little more cash behind the sofa.
Sadly, he would struggle to scoop up London’s entire housing stock, which in February was valued at just under £2trn ($2.53trn), according to agents Savills.
Cities like New York ($4.6trn) and Los Angeles ($3.9trn) are also not within his budget, hosting America’s most expensive residential markets.
Do something charitable?
There is always the possibility Musk could follow in the footsteps of Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who intends to give away 99% of his vast fortune over the next 20 years.
He could give every single man, woman, and child in the US a share of his cash pile. They would receive approximately $2,917.32 (£2,223.29), based on a population estimate of 342.7 million.
Although it would be roughly $14,348.79 (£10,935.20) for every person (roughly 69.6 million) in the UK.
If he wanted to give the entire globe an early Christmas present, then based on the rough world population estimate of 8.2 billion, everyone would receive $121.80 (£92.87).
Pay off the credit card
With $1trn, he could instantly rewrite history and erase debt interest payments and the government debt from dozens of the world’s sovereign nations.
Or Musk could wipe out the debts of Singapore ($1trn) or South Korea ($0.99trn) in one go, according to figures from the International Monetary Fund’s latest World Economic Outlook (Oct 2025).
But when it comes to the biggest debt-laden countries, $1trn would not even touch the sides.
The US has $38.3trn of government debt (just over one third of the total global debt pile) while the UK has a modest $4.1trn.
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