General Joseph Aoun, the Lebanese army commander who was elected president on Thursday, kept his military on the sidelines of a recent war between Israel and armed group Hezbollah, ordering it to prioritise civil peace even as troops were killed.

Lebanon’s parliament voted Thursday to elect the country’s army commander, Joseph Aoun, as head of state, filling a more than two-year-long presidential vacuum. The session was the legislature’s 13th attempt to elect a successor to former President Michel Aoun — no relation to the army commander — whose term ended in October 2022.

After years of gridlock, Lebanon’s parliament elected Aoun, the chief military commander, as president. His win could unlock money for postwar reconstruction.