In southern Lebanon, the hills hold sound for a long time.

The echo of drones lingers above olive groves. The low rumble of distant artillery rolls across valleys and settles into villages where windows have already been repaired once, and perhaps will be repaired again. Here, peace is rarely announced by treaties. It is measured instead in small mercies: an uninterrupted night, a road reopened, a child sleeping through the dark.

This week, even those small mercies felt uncertain.

A day after United States President Donald Trump declared that the ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon had been extended for another three weeks, Hezbollah answered not with relief, but with defiance. The Iran-backed group dismissed the agreement as “meaningless,” arguing that continued Israeli attacks in southern Lebanon and the occupation of Lebanese territory leave little substance in the promise of peace.

The extension had been announced in Washington after meetings between American officials and the ambassadors of Israel and Lebanon. Trump described the talks as productive and spoke of broader peace efforts still to come. He suggested the United States would continue helping Lebanon “protect itself” from Hezbollah, a phrase that revealed as much about Washington’s ambitions as it did about Lebanon’s internal fractures.

But Hezbollah was not in the room.

And in conflicts like this, absence often matters as much as presence.

The group, which has long acted as both armed force and political actor in Lebanon, is not a formal signatory to the ceasefire. Its leaders have insisted that any agreement allowing Israeli strikes or military presence inside Lebanon cannot be treated as binding. Hezbollah lawmaker Ali Fayyad said that any Israeli aggression against Lebanese targets gives the “resistance” the right to respond proportionately.

The word “resistance” carries a long history here.

It is spoken in speeches and funerals, painted on walls, woven into the memory of past occupations and wars. For supporters, it is identity. For critics, it is the engine of endless conflict. For many civilians living near the border, it is simply the word that often precedes another night of fear.

Israeli strikes continued on Friday.

The Israeli military said it targeted Hezbollah sites in southern Lebanon after rocket fire and hostile actions near the border. Lebanese media reported explosions near Tyre, Nabatieh, and other southern districts. Residents spoke of renewed evacuations, roads closing again, and the return of aircraft overhead.

The ceasefire, though extended, remains fragile in both language and reality.

It began as a 10-day halt to hostilities earlier this month, brokered by Washington in an effort to stabilize the Lebanon front and prevent it from further complicating U.S.-Iran negotiations. That truce reduced the scale of violence, but never fully stopped it.

There have been strikes.

There have been rockets.

There have been funerals.

Lebanon’s government has tried to present itself as the diplomatic face of calm. Prime Minister Nawaf Salam continues to call for a full Israeli withdrawal and direct negotiations toward a longer-term peace. Yet Beirut’s authority remains constrained by Hezbollah’s military strength and by the broader regional pressures surrounding Iran, Israel, and the United States.

Lebanon is negotiating on paper while war still moves through its fields.

The broader conflict has already killed nearly 2,500 people in Lebanon since March, according to officials, and displaced more than a million. Entire border villages have emptied. Schools have closed. Olive harvests have gone unattended. In northern Israel, residents too live with sirens and uncertainty, watching the hills beyond the border with the same apprehension.

War has a way of mirroring fear on both sides of a line.

The United Nations has warned that both Israeli airstrikes and Hezbollah rocket attacks may amount to serious breaches of international humanitarian law. Civilian infrastructure has been damaged. Journalists and rescue workers have been caught in the crossfire. Statements are issued. Condemnations follow. Then the sky fills again.

And still diplomacy persists.

In Washington, officials speak of frameworks and timelines.

In Beirut, officials speak of sovereignty and peace.

In southern Lebanon, people speak more quietly.

They listen for drones. They watch the roads. They wait to see whether this extension is truly a pause or only another name for delay.

As dusk settles over the hills and the muezzin’s call rises into an uncertain sky, smoke still hangs above some villages.

The ceasefire remains on paper.

But on the ground, peace is still waiting to arrive.

AI Image Disclaimer Illustrations were created using AI tools and are not real photographs.

Sources Reuters The Washington Post Axios United Nations Human Rights Office Council on Foreign Relations