Hezbollah is an Iran-backed Islamist movement that is one of the most powerful paramilitary forces in the Middle East. The group’s main base is on the Israeli-Lebanese border, where the aftermath of the war between Israel and Hamas is palpable. Hezbollah and Israel have been engaged in skirmishes since the beginning of the war, putting the entire region on a knife edge and fearing that it could spark a broader regional conflict.
This is the latest episode in a decades-long conflict between Hezbollah and Israel. Here’s what you need to know:
Israeli invasion: Israeli forces captured nearly half of Lebanon’s territory when they invaded the country in 1982. This included Beirut, where Israeli forces, along with far-right Lebanese Christian militias allied with Israel, besieged the western part of the capital to drive out Palestinian militants.
The Israeli operation left more than 17,000 dead, according to contemporary reports and an Israeli investigation into the Sabra and Shatila refugee camp massacre in Beirut. It was one of the bloodiest events in the region’s recent history. The Kahan Commission of Inquiry held Israel indirectly responsible for the massacre perpetrated by Lebanese far-right Christian fighters. Estimates of the death toll at Sabra and Shatila range from 700 to 3,000.
The Rise of Hezbollah: As masses of Palestinian fighters left Lebanon, a band of Shiite Islamist fighters trained by the nascent Islamic Republic of Iran burst onto the Lebanese political landscape. This ragtag group had an outsized and violent impact. In 1983, two suicide bombers linked to this faction attacked a U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, killing nearly 300 American and French soldiers, as well as civilians.
A year later, Iranian-linked fighters bombed the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, killing 23 people. In 1985, these militants regrouped more formally around a newly founded organization: Hezbollah.
A “support front” for Gaza in 2023: Hezbollah is part of a broader Iranian-led alliance of militant groups spread across Yemen, Syria, Gaza and Iraq that has engaged in intensified clashes with Israel and its allies since the start of the war with Hamas on October 7, 2023. The alliance has said it will continue to strike Israeli targets as long as the war in Gaza continues, renaming itself a “support front” for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, as a senior Hezbollah leader described it.
Murder of a key leader: After months of trading blows, tensions escalated when Israel claimed to have killed Hezbollah’s top military commander, Fu’ad Shukr, in a strike on Beirut in July. In retaliation, Hezbollah launched hundreds of drones and missiles at targets in Israel in August. Israel has denied that any major targets were struck, and no evidence has been made public to contradict this denial.
Displaced residents: The intensification of cross-border fighting has forced residents of northern Israel and southern Lebanon to flee their homes. Israel has made repatriating tens of thousands of residents of northern Israel to their homes near the border a new war objective. Authorities and residents in the northern region are putting increasing pressure on the Israeli government to return them. More than 100,000 people have been displaced from southern Lebanon, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.
Last attack: Hezbollah confirmed that top commander Ibrahim Aqil had been killed. Israel said Aqil was among senior Hezbollah officials killed in an airstrike on a residential building in Beirut. Lebanon was already reeling after thousands of small explosions hit Hezbollah operatives’ pagers and walkie-talkies over the week, killing dozens and wounding thousands.
