With its longtime leaders dead, its military capabilities vastly diminished, and its fighters forced to retreat from southern Lebanon, Hezbollah emerges from its war with Israel facing unprecedented challenges.

A cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah brokered by the U.S. and France took effect in Lebanon early Wednesday, raising hopes of ending more than a year of cross-border strikes and a full-scale war that has killed thousands.

In what might be his final achievement as president, Joe Biden, his diplomats, and their French counterparts have brokered a ceasefire in the increasingly brutal yearlong war between Israel and Hezbollah’s Islamist militia in Lebanon.