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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday (September 26) that Israeli forces would continue to strike Lebanon with “full force” until the Shiite militant group Hezbollah stops firing rockets at Israel. On Friday, the AP reported that Israeli military vehicles were transporting tanks and armoured vehicles toward the northern border with Lebanon, indicating an imminent escalation of hostilities.
Israeli attacks on Lebanon have killed 700 people in the last week alone, and the exchange of fire between Israel and Hezbollah, which began soon after the October 7, 2023 attacks by Hamas in southern Israel, has led to the displacement of thousands.
The Israel-Hezbollah conflict has deep roots in the history of southern Lebanon.
The establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 was accompanied by the violent displacement of more than 750,000 Palestinian Arabs in the event known as the Nakba, or catastrophe. Many of those who were displaced settled in south Lebanon.
Lebanon had a large Christian population (it is estimated to be more than 40% at present), and conflicts between the Palestinians and Christian militias were fuelled by Soviet support for the Arabs and US backing for the Christian coalition.
In the 1960s and 70s, militants affiliated with the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) also began to build a base in south Lebanon, which they used as a launchpad for attacks on northern Israeli towns during this period.
In March 1978, in response to a massacre of Israelis near Tel Aviv by Palestinian militants based in Lebanon, Israel invaded south Lebanon. In a short war that followed, Israeli forces pushed the PLO back from south Lebanon, creating a buffer north of Israel.
But the PLO attacks from Lebanon continued and, four years later, Israel mounted another invasion, intending this time to drive the PLO out of Lebanon altogether. The Israel Defence Forces (IDF), along with their Lebanese Christian allies, laid siege to Beirut, forcing the evacuation of PLO leaders.
By 1985, Israel had withdrawn from most of Lebanon but maintained a 15-20-km wide security zone in south Lebanon to prevent cross-border attacks. This area was patrolled by the South Lebanon Army (SLA), a Christian militia allied with Israel. However, this occupation became a lengthy entanglement that fuelled resistance from various groups and led to the rise of Hezbollah.
Hezbollah, the “Party of God”, was formed in the early 1980s in response to the Israeli occupation of Lebanon. The group was founded with support from Ayatollah Khomeini’s regime in Iran, which saw an opportunity to export the ideals of the Islamic revolution and challenge Israel’s dominance.
The group’s initial goal was to resist Israeli occupation, but as it strengthened, its objectives expanded to establishing a theocratic state in Lebanon, similar to the one in Iran following the revolution of 1979. It also aimed to oppose Western influence in the region, wrote Augustus Richard Norton in Hezbollah: A Short History (2007).
In 1996, a 17-day campaign by the IDF codenamed Operation Grapes of Wrath became a key moment in the Israel-Hezbollah war. Israel advanced militarily, but the campaign resulted in major civilian casualties. In the village of Qana in Israeli-occupied south Lebanon, more than 100 Lebanese civilians were killed after a UN compound was shelled, fuelling support for Hezbollah.
In his paper ‘Hezbollah and the Arab Spring’ (Contemporary Review of the Middle East, 2014), political scientist Joseph Alagha wrote that Hezbollah’s ability to deliver social services such as healthcare and education won it substantial support among Lebanon’s marginalised Shiite population, particularly in the south.
Researcher Daniel Byman noted that Hezbollah’s use of civilian areas for military operations made it difficult for Israel to retaliate without collateral damage. (A High Price: The Triumphs and Failures of Israeli Counterterrorism, 2011)
By the late 1990s, Israel’s presence in south Lebanon had become politically and militarily unsustainable. The Israeli public had grown weary of its costs. Hezbollah, meanwhile, carried on a war of attrition. Despite Israel’s superior firepower, the group’s resilience left the Israeli government with limited options — and its forces unilaterally withdrew in 2000.
The last major conflict took place in 2006, after Hezbollah killed three Israeli soldiers and abducted two others, demanding that Israel return Lebanese prisoners in exchange.
After Israel launched an attack, around 1,200 Lebanese and 159 Israelis were killed. The high human cost, and the fact that Hezbollah could not be eliminated, drew criticism within Israel. The government-appointed Winograd Commission said that the government did not consider options for de-escalation, and some of its goals for the military offensive were unclear.
The long Israel-Hezbollah conflict has shaped the Middle East in multiple ways. Hezbollah, the crown jewel of Iran’s overseas military operations, has developed significant military capability, and has become, in the words of Norton, “the spearhead of resistance against Israel”. It has come to dominate Lebanon’s national politics, and is a powerful factor in Tehran’s strategy in the region.
Hezbollah’s success has inspired other militant groups. In Hezbollah: The Global Footprint of Lebanon’s Party of God (2013), Matthew Levitt described how its tactics, particularly its guerrilla warfare and rocket attacks, were adopted by Palestinian groups and other Iran-backed militias.
The experience with Hezbollah has shaped Israeli military and political strategies as well. The long occupation and the difficulty of fighting a non-state actor made it hesitant to reoccupy Lebanese territory, and to instead rely on airstrikes and short-term incursions.
But all this might be about to change, as Netanyahu’s government moves the focus of the war away from Gaza, and IDF tanks line up in northern Israel, seemingly in preparation for another ground invasion of south Lebanon.
