In an address to the nation on Thursday evening, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu laid out Israel's strategy behind the 10-day ceasefire in Lebanon.
Netanyahu described the moment as "an opportunity for a historic peace" born out of the shift in the balance of power in the region.
Netanyahu opened by reviewing the steps that led to this point: "We set off the pagers, we eliminated a cache of 150,000 rockets and missiles that were meant to destroy our cities, and we eliminated Nasrallah. The balance shifted so that in the past month, we began to get calls from Lebanon for direct peace talks, something that hasn't happened in over 40 years."
The Prime Minister explained that the 10-day ceasefire is in practice a "time out" intended to advance a peace agreement, the details of which began to be discussed at the Washington summit. Israel's two basic demands are the disarmament of Hezbollah and peace through strength.
Netanyahu revealed that he vehemently rejected Hezbollah's demands for a full Israeli withdrawal to the international border and a "silence in exchange for silence" deal. "I did not agree to either," he clarified.