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Historical Background to the 2006 Conflict

The armies of Lebanon and Israel have not fought a conventional war since 1948. However, the government of Lebanon has allowed, or failed to control, armed groups that have launched attacks on Israel from within Lebanese territory.

In 1982, Israel launched a major invasion it called “Operation Peace for Galilee” for the stated purpose of destroying the Palestine Liberation Organization’s military and political apparatus in Lebanon. Israel’s aerial bombardments killed thousands of civilians as its forces laid siege to Beirut. The United Nations Security Council issued resolutions calling for a total, immediate and unconditional withdrawal of troops from Lebanon. Israel, citing overriding political and military objectives, continued to occupy large parts of the country.

The Israeli occupation led to the creation of a Shi`a resistance based primarily in the southern suburbs of Beirut, the Bekaa valley, and the villages of southern Lebanon. In 1985, a Lebanese group calling itself Hezbollah formally announced itself and declared an armed struggle to end the Israeli occupation of Lebanon. When the Lebanese civil war ended in 1990 and other warring factions agreed to disarm, Hezbollah and the South Lebanese Army (SLA), a pro-Israel militia, refused. Hezbollah cited as its reasons Israel’s continued occupation of Lebanese territory and its holding of Lebanese prisoners.

The government of Lebanon allowed Hezbollah to maintain its weapons. In 1992, Hezbollah participated in Lebanon’s national elections, and the candidate list it supported won twelve seats in parliament. In 2005 it entered the government for the first time and obtained ministerial portfolios.

Hezbollah and Israel have clashed sporadically along the Israeli-Lebanon border and inside Lebanon since the 1980s. Hezbollah has fought against the occupation army, fired rockets and mortar shells into Israel, and staged cross-border commando raids. The IDF has conducted ground operations in Lebanon, fired artillery shells and conducted air raids for the stated purpose of eliminating the danger to Israel posed by Hezbollah and other armed militia based in Lebanon.

Twice during the 1990s, Israel launched major air and ground operations, for the declared purpose of ending Hezbollah rockets being fired into Israel and to make it difficult for Hezbollah to continue using southern Lebanon as a base for attacking Israeli forces.

The first such operation, in late July 1993, labeled “Operation Accountability” by Israel, lasted seven days. Israeli operations resulted in the deaths of some 120 Lebanese civilians, injured close to 500, and temporarily drove an estimated 300,000 villagers and Palestinian refugees from their homes. That week Hezbollah fired 151 rockets across the border, according to Israeli authorities, killing two civilians and wounding 24.²³¹

The 1993 fighting ended in an informal, unwritten set of rules between Israel and Hezbollah prohibiting attacks on civilians. But by 1996 these rules had completely broke down, with both sides accusing the other of repeated violations.

On April 11, 1996 Israeli initiated a major military operation in Lebanon, dubbed “Operation Grapes of Wrath.” By the time it ended on April 27, Israeli military operations resulted in 154 civilian deaths and injured another 351. Hezbollah fired 639 rockets into Israel, according to Israeli officials.²³² There were no Israeli civilian deaths, although sixty-two civilians were injured, including three seriously, and sixty-five were treated for shock, according to the IDF.²³³

The conflict ended in a written agreement between Syria, Lebanon and Israel, compliance with which the United States and France would monitor. The agreement, according to the U.S. understanding of it, stated:

1. Armed groups in Lebanon will not carry out attacks by Katyusha rockets or by any kind of weapon into Israel.
2. Israel and those cooperating with it will not fire any kind of weapon at civilians or civilian targets in Lebanon.
3. Beyond this, the two parties commit to ensuring that under no circumstances will civilians be the target of attack and that civilian populated areas and industrial and electrical installations will not be used as launching grounds for attacks.
4. Without violating this understanding, nothing herein shall preclude any party from exercising the right of self-defense.²³⁴

The frequency of violent incidents declined following the agreement.

By May 2000, Israel withdrew its troops from southern Lebanon, saying it had ended its eighteen-year-long occupation. The Lebanese authorities considered that Israel’s withdrawal was incomplete, referring to the disputed Shebaa Farms area, and to Israel’s continued holding of Lebanese prisoners, justifications that Hezbollah then used to continue resistance.

The Start of the July-August 2006 Conflict

At about 9 a.m. on July 12, 2006, Hezbollah fighters crossed into Israeli territory and attacked an IDF convoy patrolling the border, killing three IDF soldiers and taking two captured IDF soldiers back into Lebanon. Shortly before the incursion, Hezbollah fired rockets and mortar shells at military positions and nearby civilian communities along the border, including the town of Shlomi and the moshav (cooperative community) of Zarit. With hindsight, these attacks appear to have been diversionary maneuvers for its incursion and assault on the IDF convoy. The Hezbollah rockets launched that day—24, according to the IDF Home Front Command—caused light physical injuries to two civilians.²³⁵

Almost immediately after the attack, an IDF Merkava tank sent into Lebanon to rescue the captured soldiers ran into a massive anti-tank mine that killed three IDF soldiers and wounded a fourth. An eighth IDF soldier was killed in fighting around efforts to retrieve the injured and the dead from the tank.²³⁶

Dubbed “Operation Truthful Promise” by Hezbollah, the raid fulfilled Hezbollah Secretary-General Nasrallah’s longstanding aim to take IDF soldiers hostage in order to pressure Israel to release remaining Lebanese prisoners in Israeli prisons, and to return the disputed Shebaa Farms area to Lebanese control.²³⁷ Immediately following the raid, Hezbollah stated that it would return the abducted soldiers to Israel through “indirect negotiations” resulting in a “trade” with Lebanese prisoners held in Israeli prisons.²³⁸

While international humanitarian law allows belligerent parties to exchange prisoners, capturing and using nationals of a belligerent party in order to compel that party to release prisoners is considered hostage-taking in violation of humanitarian law.²³⁹

After the abduction of the two soldiers, Hezbollah perhaps expected a response from Israel limited to several days of airstrikes on Hezbollah targets followed by a prisoner exchange negotiation, as had happened during prior hostage-taking incidents.²⁴⁰ Instead, Israel mounted a full-scale military offensive not only to retrieve the captured soldiers, but to clear Hezbollah from its northern border.

Thus began the campaign Hezbollah labeled “Truthful Promise.” Israel labeled its campaign “Operation Just Reward” but later renamed it “Operation Change of Direction.” Some Israeli and other commentators and others have argued that the Israeli offensive in Lebanon triggered by Hezbollah’s capture of its soldiers on July 12 had been long in preparation,²⁴¹ Hezbollah had also been preparing for war long before that day.²⁴²

Immediately following the Hezbollah operations of July 12, the IDF began firing on southern Lebanon, hitting suspected Hezbollah positions and infrastructure, and causing civilian casualties. After losing five troops that afternoon in an unsuccessful foray into southern Lebanon to rescue the two captured soldiers, the IDF quickly broadened its aerial bombardment of targets in Lebanon. The attacks killed at least 55 civilians and wounded more than 100 by July 13, according to media reports at the time.

Hezbollah leader Nasrallah claimed that its operation to capture soldiers was justified by Israel’s having broken an agreement to release Lebanese prisoners.²⁴³ Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called Hezbollah’s July 12 attack an act of war, and held the government of Lebanon responsible.²⁴⁴

On July 13, Hezbollah fired an estimated 120 rockets into Israel, according to Israel’s tally, hitting some twenty towns, including, for the first time ever, the city of Haifa, which is 30 kilometers from the border. That day, Hezbollah rockets claimed their first two civilian fatalities of the conflict.