Hezbollah, which has exchanged fire with Israeli forces since October, last went to war with Israel in 2006 and has since expanded its domestic and regional influence, politically and militarily.

Financed and armed by Iran, Hezbollah is the most prominent actor in the so-called axis of resistance — regional pro-Tehran armed groups opposed to Israel that also include Palestinian group Hamas, Iraqi movements, and Yemen’s Huthi rebels.

Since the day after Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel that triggered war in the Gaza Strip, Hezbollah has launched cross-border attacks from Lebanon seeking to tie up Israeli military resources in support of its Palestinian ally.

Fears of all-out war have spiked after Hezbollah vowed to avenge an Israeli strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs last month that killed a key commander, Fuad Shukr, and Iran pledged retaliation for the killing in Tehran, blamed on Israel, of Hamas’s political chief Ismail Haniyeh.

Hezbollah-Israel War

Hezbollah, whose name means “Party of God” in Arabic, was founded during the Lebanese civil war after Israel besieged the capital Beirut in 1982, and has since become a key domestic political player.

Created at the initiative of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, the Shiite Muslim movement gained its moniker as “the Resistance” by fighting Israeli troops who occupied southern Lebanon until 2000.

Israel and Hezbollah fought a month-long war in July-August 2006 that killed some 1,200 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians, and 160 in Israel, mostly soldiers, after the group kidnapped two Israeli troops in a cross-border raid.

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 ended that conflict and called for the Lebanese army and United Nations peacekeepers to be the only armed forces deployed in south Lebanon.

But Hezbollah has maintained a discreet presence there, where it enjoys broad support and where experts say it likely has a network of underground tunnels.

On August 16, the group released a video showing what appeared to be underground tunnels and large missile launchers, without revealing their location.

The group also has a strong presence in the Bekaa valley in east Lebanon near the border with Syria.

Hezbollah has bolstered its powerful arsenal, including with guided missiles, and says it can count on more than 100,000 fighters.

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah was elected secretary-general in 1992 after Israel assassinated his predecessor, and he rarely appears in public. 

Hezbollah’s Regional Influence

Hezbollah is a key actor in the Middle East, where it plays a central role in the “axis of resistance”. It has supported and trained Iran-backed groups in Iraq and Huthi rebels in Yemen, who since October have claimed attacks on Israel and Israeli-linked shipping interests.

Hezbollah is also present in Syria, where many of its members have fought in support of President Bashar al-Assad in his country’s civil war, with Damascus also an ally of Tehran.

Domestically, Hezbollah is the only Lebanese faction to have retained its weapons after the country’s 1975-1990 civil conflict, doing so in the name of “resistance” against Israel.

It is now a key political player, though detractors have accused it of being a “state within a state”.

Political deadlock between Hezbollah allies and their adversaries since late 2022 has prevented the election of a new president, in a country experiencing a grinding economic crisis.

Hezbollah’s Services

Founded in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, Hezbollah has become predominant in all Shiite Muslim areas of Lebanon, while its key religious and financial institutions are based in Beirut’s southern suburbs.

The movement runs an extensive social services network, complete with schools, hospitals, emergency responders and a wide range of charitable organisations serving its supporters.

Its trademark yellow flags and huge portraits of Nasrallah, along with pictures of dead commanders, fighters and “axis of resistance” figures, adorn areas of the country where it is popular.

The United States has considered Hezbollah a “terrorist” organisation for years, blaming it for a series of bombings and hijackings in the 1980s, including one targeting US Marines in Beirut. The European Union applies the classification to the group’s armed wing.

In 2022, a UN-backed court sentenced two Hezbollah members in absentia to life imprisonment for a huge Beirut bombing in 2005 that killed Lebanon’s former premier Rafic Hariri.

Beirut:

Indian nationals currently in Lebanon and those planning to travel to the West Asian country are advised to “exercise caution,” the Indian Embassy in Beirut said in an advisory issued on Monday.

Tensions in the region have escalated following a rocket strike on a soccer field in northern Israel’s Majdal Shams on July 27 that resulted in the death of 12 children and injured several others.

Advisory for Indian Nationals. pic.twitter.com/SuFyv23dhq

— India in Lebanon (@IndiaInLebanon) July 29, 2024

Israel and the USA blamed Hezbollah for the air strike with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying that Hezbollah will pay a “heavy price which it has not paid up to now” for the attack.

Netanyahu also held a security assessment meeting in Tel Aviv on Sunday during which “the manner and timing of the response” against Hezbollah was decided.

Several flights heading to Beirut have also been suspended over the last couple of days following the Israeli threat of military action against Hezbollah.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who was in Tokyo on Monday, also expressed Washington’s support for Israel, highlighting Israel’s right to self-defence while also urging the need to avoid escalation of the conflict on Israel’s northern border.

“We don’t want to see the conflict escalate. We don’t want to see it spread,” Blinken said on the sidelines of the Quad Foreign Ministers Meeting.

Meanwhile, the Indian Embassy in Beirut shared an emergency mail ID and phone number, asking the Indian nationals in the country to remain in touch.

According to the Indian embassy, there are nearly 4000 Indian nationals in Lebanon, with a majority of them employed as workers in companies, construction sector, agricultural farms, etc.
 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Jerusalem:

An Israeli military commander said Friday that troops in the country’s north were preparing for “a decisive offensive” against Lebanon’s Hezbollah after months of deadly cross-border exchanges.

Israeli forces have traded near-daily fire with Hamas ally Hezbollah since the Palestinian group’s October 7 attack on southern Israel started the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip.

Major General Ori Gordin, Israel’s commanding officer in the north, told troops that “we have already eliminated more than 500 terrorists in Lebanon, the great majority of them from Hezbollah”, an army statement said.

According to an AFP tally, more than nine months of violence have killed at least 523 people in Lebanon.

Most of them, 342 people, have been confirmed to be Hezbollah operatives but the tally also includes 104 civilians. Gordin did not mention civilian casualties.

In northern Israel, at least 18 Israeli soldiers and 13 civilians have been killed, according to the military.

The exchanges of fire have been largely restricted to the border areas and displaced tens of thousands of Lebanese as well as Israeli residents.

The Israeli military has “destroyed thousands” of targets across the border, Gordin said.

The statement said troops were now preparing “for the transition to offence”.

“When the moment comes and we go on the offensive, it will be a decisive offensive,” Gordin added.

Iran-backed Hezbollah says it is acting in support of Hamas with its attacks on Israel since October 8.

The escalating violence and unsuccessful mediation efforts have raised fears of all-out conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, which last went to war in 2006.

Israel has demanded that parts of southern Lebanon be cleared of Hezbollah operatives in line with a UN Security Council resolution that ended the 2006 war.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Beirut, Lebanon:

Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement said on Sunday it launched its “largest” air operation, sending explosive drones at a mountaintop Israeli military intelligence base in the annexed Golan Heights.

It is the latest incident among escalating cross-border exchanges of fire that have triggered global alarm.

Hezbollah, an Iran-backed Hamas ally, has traded almost daily fire with Israeli forces since the Palestinian group’s October 7 attack on Israel triggered war in the Gaza Strip.

Announcing “the largest operation” carried out by its aerial forces, Hezbollah said in a statement that its fighters sent “multiple, successive squadrons of drones to target the reconnaissance centre” on Mount Hermon.

The Israeli military said an explosive drone “fell in an open area in the Mount Hermon area” but there were “no injuries”.

Attacks as well as rhetoric have escalated in recent weeks, spurring fears of an all-out conflict between Israel and Hezbollah which last went to war in 2006.

The Lebanese movement said the drone attack was part of its “response” to the killing of an operative in a strike Saturday deep into east Lebanon around 100 kilometres (60 miles) from the border.

The Mount Hermon attack targeted intelligence systems, “destroying them and starting a major fire”, Hezbollah said.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant visited troops on Mount Hermon earlier on Sunday, his office said.

In two additional statements, the military said its air defences “successfully intercepted” several “aerial targets” that crossed from Lebanon after sirens sounded in the Golan Heights area.

Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967 and later annexed it in a move largely unrecognised by the international community.

The Israeli strike on Saturday killed “a key operative in Hezbollah’s Aerial Defence Unit”, the military has said.

Throughout Sunday, Hezbollah announced four more attacks on Israeli military sites across the border with barrages of rockets as well as some guided missiles. Israeli authorities reported four wounded.

Gallant, in a video from Mount Hermon, said that “even if there is a ceasefire” in Gaza, “we will continue fighting and doing everything necessary to bring about the desired result” in the campaign against Hezbollah.

The cross-border violence has killed at least 497 people in Lebanon, mostly fighters but also including 95 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

On the Israeli side, at least 16 soldiers and 11 civilians have been killed, according to the authorities.

Tens of thousands of residents have been displaced from the border areas in both southern Lebanon and northern Israel.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)