Israel-Hezbollah war

2024 decapitation of Hezbollah and ceasefire agreement

The first major confrontation between Israel and Hezbollah took place weeks later in September. Late that month Israel detonated thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies that it had clandestinely sold to members of Hezbollah, dealing a significant blow to its communications network and killing dozens (although some victims were not members of Hezbollah). The attack was followed days later by an onslaught of Israeli air strikes in southern Lebanon and Beirut that Israel said targeted Hezbollah weapons but killed hundreds of people, including civilians. On September 25 Hezbollah launched a missile toward central Israel for the first time, aiming for Tel Aviv, although it was intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system.

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On September 27 the Israeli air force dropped more than 80 bombs into the Dahieh neighborhood just south of Beirut in a strike targeting and killing Hassan Nasrallah, the decades-long leader of Hezbollah responsible for broadening the organization beyond its militant arm to include a political party with an elaborate network of social welfare services. On October 1 Israeli ground forces entered southern Lebanon, where they met immediate combat and suffered many casualties. Hezbollah’s need for fighters, meanwhile, forced it to withdraw fighters from Syria, where it had been helping to prop up the regime of Bashar al-Assad during the Syrian Civil War. (The withdrawal enabled the toppling of Assad by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham later that year.) The devastation in Lebanon over the following two months exceeded that of the 2006 Lebanon War and included wide destruction in southern Lebanon. A ceasefire agreement announced on November 26 was based largely on the provisions of United Nations Resolution 1701 that brought the 2006 war to an end. The withdrawal of Hezbollah north of the Litani River, a key provision of the 2006 resolution, had not previously been enforced and was among the primary tensions that led to the escalation in violence in 2023 and 2024.

Ceasefire breakdown and reescalation in 2026

The 2024 ceasefire remained tenuous as Hezbollah, the Lebanese government, and Israel each failed to meet its provisions. The Lebanese government, which in January 2025 appointed its army chief Joseph Aoun as president, was supposed to ease concerns over security in southern Lebanon by deploying the army to the region as Hezbollah and Israel withdrew. The disarmament of Hezbollah proved difficult for the state to enforce, however, and Hezbollah meanwhile sought to rearm as Israeli forces continued to strike targets in southern Lebanon almost daily.

In March 2026 the fragile ceasefire came to an end amid the outbreak of the 2026 Iran war between the United States, Israel, and Iran, which took on regional proportions and prompted Hezbollah to fire drones and missiles into Israel. That month Israel issued sweeping evacuation orders across southern Lebanon, displacing by the month’s end more than 1,100,000 people—nearly one-fifth of the country’s population. Meanwhile many Lebanese blamed Hezbollah for providing a pretext for Israel’s large-scale attacks, and the Lebanese government quickly moved to outlaw Hezbollah’s military activities and allow the state to arrest anyone involved in those activities. As an Israeli ground invasion advanced into Lebanon, Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz announced plans on March 24 for Israeli forces to occupy southern Lebanon up to the Litani River, a move that would effectively reverse Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000.

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After the United States and Iran announced a two-week ceasefire (which included Israel) on April 7–8, there was disagreement between the parties on whether Lebanon was included. Just hours later the IDF conducted a blitz across Lebanon that killed hundreds of people and wounded more than 1,000 others. With the ceasefire under pressure, the United States pushed Israel to lower the temperature and engage in negotiations to end the conflict in Lebanon. Those negotiations, the most direct and high-level engagement between Israel and Lebanon since 1993, began under U.S. mediation on April 14. On April 16 Trump announced that a 10-day ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah was set to begin the following day. Despite the cessation of fighting, the IDF continued to demolish towns and villages along the border; some clashes took place between the IDF and Hezbollah as a result. On April 23 the formal ceasefire was extended by three weeks, although the IDF and Hezbollah engaged in targeted hostilities on the ground. In May the United States and Iran were reportedly close to reaching a memorandum of understanding to end the hostilities between those two countries. An end to the hostilities in Lebanon was expected to be a component of that arrangement. However, the conflict in Lebanon intensified as those negotiations were taking place. On May 30 IDF ground forces crossed north of the Litani River for the first time since 2006. The following day the IDF announced it had captured Beaufort Castle (Qalʿat al-Shaqīf), a Crusades-era fortress north of the Litani River that served as the IDF headquarters during its 18-year occupation of southern Lebanon (1982–2000). In early June IDF strikes on Dahieh in southern Beirut prompted a reescalation in direct tensions with Iran, which on June 7 launched ballistic missiles toward Israel for the first time since the ceasefire in the Iran war. Nonetheless, on June 14, the United States and Iran reached the long-awaited memorandum of understanding, which included a cessation of hostilities in Lebanon.