The mortar attack of December 3, 2024, by Hezbollah in Lebanon and the subsequent blatant violation of the ceasefire reveals one more conspicuous ineffectiveness of international organizations that are striving for the establishment of peace in the Middle East. On the same day, news appeared regarding the Israeli statement that supplies to Gaza were frozen and more than 300 trucks waited at the entry point to deliver the humanitarian assistance.

The mortar attack by Hezbollah on December 3, 2024, underscores the ineffectiveness of international organizations in maintaining peace.

These events underline the ongoing instability of ceasefires and the inability of global organizations to fix essential causes of the conflict and control sustainable reforms. The humanitarian situation in Gaza remains terrible after many years of warfare and political turbulence, and no international organization has provided any assistance.

These blockades by Israel aggravated by a lack of proper intervention by the international community have left the region hopeless. Different humanitarian organizations estimate that up to 80% of residents in the Gaza Strip depend on some humanitarian assistance, a significant part of the area’s infrastructure is destroyed because bombings continue and reconstruction is insufficient.

Although the various international actors lay the groundwork for temporary ceasefires and secession of hostilities, they are not anchored on the social and economic conditions of an almost failed society. Alms and hunger keep pushing people to radicalization, thus ensuring that violence remains ‘the order of the day’ in the region. However, there is always doubt about the position of the international community, which acts as a mediator in most such cases.

Most of the actors involved in peacemaking are deemed to have political prejudices, which hurts confidence between two warring factions. For instance, the United States, one of the most successful mediators in that area, is often accused of public support for Israel, which weakens the reliability of its peace initiatives.

Even more, other global organizations like the United Nations have often failed to implement resolutions largely because of internal conflicts and the power of veto by permanent members of the Security Council. Such bias has caused a halt in constructive negotiations, which are all that make up peace-making processes that instead become crisis-solving processes.

The humanitarian situation in Gaza remains dire, with 80% of residents dependent on aid amid ongoing blockades and violence.

It is the same in Lebanon where the situation is just as bad. It has been struggling with an economic crisis, political stagnation, and a post-defeat period resulting from the intervention of outsiders for more than forty years. Hezbollah is a dominant non-state actor which has large political and military aspirations and remains a threat to the sovereignty of Lebanon.

The latest violation of the ceasefire agreement with Israel on December 3 signifies how Hezbollah acts with total influence and frequently turns Lebanon into a proxy theater. Such actions not only aggravate the situation in the region but also contribute to the world’s failure to punish non-state actors.

This state of affairs shows that proper compliance with the UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which called for the disarmament of Hezbollah, common among other regional milieus, is among other things, proof of other international frameworks as being incapable of preventing conflicts from escalating.

Yet another area of concern which, sadly, is not attended with sufficient attention is that of penalties in peace processes. Ceasefires are many times signed with no well-defined mechanisms for how they will be violated in the future with little repercussions. The recent mortar attack by Hezbollah is an example in this respect given the fact that it was carried out at a time of an uneasy peace after months of escalation of tensions in the region.

If there are no physical consequences for violating such ceasefires then they are just a show of a stop to fighting instead of being a tool for the achievement of peace. This pattern has been played out many times in Gaza when numerous ceasefires have been violated over the years by both Israelis and Palestinians.

International actors often lack impartiality, undermining their credibility as mediators in the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Moreover, most of the acts in violation of women’s rights are responded to on an international level reactively rather than proactively. Global actors pay considerable attention to the emergencies that are taking place at the moment but do not devote time to the causes that initiate the conflict.

In Gaza; the decrease of tensions may be achieved through addressing the problem of blockade, sharing improvement of living conditions, as well as support of economic development. However, these measures can only be sustained only with a continuing commitment from the international community something that is greatly lacking at present.

As well as that in Lebanon the overcoming of the basic conditions of Hezbollah’s influence means political corruption, economic inequality, and foreign intervention would be required. However international endeavors have been sporadic and half-hearted and this has put Lebanon in a precarious state of affairs. Failure to develop a coherent approach for dealing with these issues is symptomatic of a larger problem regarding the inability of the current global system to meet the new requirements of modern war.

It was also this same structure that made the broader implications of these failures not confined to the Middle East. Conflict resolution in international institutions is ineffective thereby leading to compromise of legitimacy in international governance institutions. United Nations through its blue helmet soldiers has been at the forefront of peacemaking for decades but it has failed at the printing time in countries such as Gaza and Lebanon among others.

Legal changes such as fiscal and constitutional/public reform in accountability measures, impartiality in mediation, and enforcement functions are needed to reintroduce credibility and long-term stability. The concerned violations were observed on December 3rd in Lebanon and Gaza, however unfortunately they are not mere sporadic incidents but reflect the failure of current international conflict regulation paradigms.

Ceasefires are frequently violated without repercussions, leading to a cycle of violence rather than sustainable peace.

As the region is in the process of instability, the world has to realize that it cannot go on like this and its current countermeasures are ineffective. The coexistence of ceasefires and no punishment, of mediation and partiality, and interventions with no changes, only prolong the fighting.

It is high time for international actors to stop dwelling on temporary measures and find feasible methods that enhance justice and development and give a human face to the victims of wars. But only in this way, the Middle East can imagine a future for itself wherein the word peace will not just be a fleeting echo.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. They do not represent the views, beliefs, or policies of the Stratheia.