Summary
Islamic-Lebanese organization founded in the wake of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, financially and ideologically supported by Iran, which took up a guerrilla war against the Israeli occupation of South Lebanon and after eighteen years forced Israel’s “unilateral retreat” in 2000, as presented by Zionist Israel and the Question of Palestine (Zionist Israel and the Question of Palestine, PDF p.144 / printed p.135).
Details
- For Israel, Hezbollah (and for many years also the PLO and later Hamas) was a “terrorist organization”; negotiations with it remained unimaginable because it was allegedly pursuing the goal of obliterating Israel, so the occupation that was the reason for its guerrilla war produced a war of attrition in the “security zone” (PDF p.146-147).
- In July 1993, after Hezbollah combatants killed six Israeli soldiers, the Rabin government launched operation “Payback” against villages in South Lebanon; by the ceasefire of July 31, 1993 approximately 300,000 South-Lebanese had fled, and one hundred and eighteen Lebanese civilians and eight Hezbollah fighters — “more than fifty,” according to Israeli reports — were killed (PDF p.145-146).
- Hezbollah was the target of Operation Grapes of Wrath in April 1996, yet succeeded in firing Katyusha rockets into northern Israel, and its guerrilla war continued up to the Barak government’s retreat resolution of 2000 (PDF p.150-151).
- The military criticised the 2000 withdrawal as a “major curtailment of the deterrence power” of Israel and blamed it for the eruption of the “Second Intifada” that same year (PDF p.151).
Related pages
Lebanon invasion 1982, Operation Grapes of Wrath, Deterrence, Zionist Israel and the Question of Palestine