AFTER 16 days of fighting that left more than 150 Lebanese dead, the US Secretary of State, Mr Warren Christopher, finally managed to broker a ceasefire yesterday. He said it would enable Lebanese villagers to return to their homes and northern Israelis to emerge from their bomb-shelters.
Announcing the terms of the truce at a press conference in Jerusalem beside the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Shimon Peres, Mr Christopher said he hoped Israel, Lebanon and Syria would now resume substantive negotiations on full peace treaties. However, he acknowledged that he had not yet been able to secure a firm commitment for the resumption of such talks.
The ceasefire, which came into effect in the early hours of this morning, amounts to an improved version of the verbal understandings that put a halt to the previous flare-up across the Israeli-Lebanese border three years ago.
This time, the Lebanese government, its Syrian backers and Israel have agreed to a written, albeit unsigned, document that should leave less room for potentially fatal misinterpretation.
Earlier yesterday sporadic bombing continued. Six Israeli shells landed close to UN bases, and Israeli aircraft launched a number of raids.
Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Hizbullah guerrilla group that has fired about 1,000 Katyusha rockets into northern Israel in the past 16 days, also announced last night that Hizbullah would adhere to the terms.
The agreement prohibits attacks on civilian targets on either side of the border, and also outlaws any opening of fire from civilian areas. It was Hizbullah rocket fire at Israeli troops from the vicinity of a small southern Lebanese village nine days ago that led to the gravest incident in the fighting, when Israeli retaliatory shelling killed more than 100 Lebanese civilians taking shelter at a UN base.
Mr Peres said the agreement also gave Israel "unlimited freedom of action" to defend itself if its troops came under fire. But it was unclear how such freedom could be reconciled with the ban on all firing into civilian areas.
The Israeli Prime Minister, who launched what was code-named Operation Grapes of Wrath in an avowed but clearly unsuccessful attempt to destroy Hizbullah's offensive potential, nevertheless professed deep satisfaction at the terms of the accord.
However, Mr Prosper Azran, the mayor of Kiryat Shmona, the northern Israeli town that has taken most of the Hizbullah rocket hits, immediately voiced what may turn out to be a tide of domestic criticism, noting accurately that the deal offers no guarantees of safety for Israeli troops patrolling the so-called "security zone", the strip of Lebanon just north of the Israeli border that Israel occupies as a kind of buffer area.
Lebanon, not unnaturally, was not prepared to offer any guarantees of immunity for Israeli troops, whom it regards as unwelcome occupiers. At his own press conference, held at the same time as Mr Christopher's, the Lebanese Prime Minister, Mr Rafik al-Hariri, said his government would "do its best" to ensure the truce was respected.
But the only long-term solution, he went on, "is to see Israel leaving our territory, and peace taking effect all through the region".
Meanwhile, a UN commander in south Lebanon described Operation Grapes of Wrath as a "miserable failure".
Brig Gen Pierce Redmond, the deputy force commander of UNIFIL, said: "[The operation] is completely out of proportion to the Hizbullah action. The Israelis stated that this is to stop Hizbullah firing rockets into Israel, but it has only demonstrated that Hizbullah can fire as many Katyushas as they want."