A nearly year-long exchange of fire between Israel and the Iran-backed Lebanese militia Hezbollah dramatically escalated this week as Israel launched a huge number of strikes into Lebanon. Israel’s political and military leadership said the attacks are intended to destroy Hezbollah’s capabilities and prepare for a potential ground invasion.
The Israeli strikes have targeted southern Lebanon, from where Hezbollah has fired rockets and missiles into Israel, and increasingly its strongholds in southern Beirut and the Bekaa valley, where Israel claims the group stores thousands of rockets.
Hezbollah has directed a smaller number of strikes south, which Israel largely claims to have intercepted. A missile attack on Tel Aviv that was stopped by air defences represented its deepest attack yet into Israel.
Hezbollah emerged as a force in the 1980s during the Lebanese civil war and fought Israel in southern Lebanon up to its withdrawal from the country in 2000. The two sides also went to war for 34 days in 2006.
The current exchange of fire began on 8 October 2023, the day after the Hamas attack on Israel, when Hezbollah said it was firing at Israeli positions in solidarity with the Palestinians and pledging its support to Hamas.
The Israeli airstrikes on Monday were by far the most deadly of the period since then and killed 558 people.
Since the exchanges began, Hezbollah has fired an estimated 80,00 rockets at northern Israel and also hit military bases with drones.
Israel had before Monday conducted air and artillery strikes against southern Lebanon and Hezbollah targets on a much smaller scale.
This weeks’ action by Israel followed attacks using sabotaged pagers and walkie-talkies last week that were widely blamed on Israel and an airstrike that killed a top commander in south Beirut.
The UN says more than 110,000 Lebanese have left their homes in the south with approximately 70,000 people displaced in northern Israel. Israel has said the return of these people to their communities is a war aim.
The extent of devastation in southern Lebanon this week is not fully known. Satellite images from the Bekaa valley have shown what appears to be smoke coming from areas in the villages that Israel has been targeting.
Israel has also carried out strikes it says are targeting Hezbollah commanders. Many of these have been in Beirut, but also in southern Lebanon and Syria. On Thursday, Israel said a strike had killed a Hezbollah drone commander, Mohammed Hussein Surour.
