Netanyahu has not suddenly turned dovish peacemaker. He can redeploy his troops or abandon the peace deal at any time. It doesn’t bind his hands

Joe Biden is making the most of the cessation of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon that he helped to broker. “It reminds us that peace is possible,” he declared in the White House Rose Garden, where US presidents habitually preen rather than prune. Yet Biden’s flowery self-congratulation jars at this fragile moment. It sounds like cruel mockery to the beleaguered people of Gaza.

With the truce holding for a second day, Lebanon has been spared more death and wanton destruction, for now. Celebrating, many people are heading home to the south despite Israeli warnings. But Biden’s belief that the accord will hasten a Gaza ceasefire, spike the guns of Iran and its proxies, and open the way to the wider regional settlement he has long sought finds scant justification in fact.

Simon Tisdall is the Observer’s foreign affairs commentator