Historical Context: Understanding the Roots of the Lebanon-Israel Tensions

Overview

The Middle East region is notorious for the long thorny conflicts ranging from small skirmishes to large scale wars resulting in unspeakable atrocities and disasters on both parties, such as untold numbers of human casualties and destruction of infrastructure and assassination of prominent political figures. 

The conflicts in the region have a huge impact on the global geopolitical landscape and play a key role in the development of bilateral and multilateral relations.One of the most prominent conflicting parties in the middle east region are Israel and Lebanon, particularly the military group of Hezbollah.

The long-held tension between Israel and its neighbors stretches many decades ever since the establishment of the Israeli state in the Middle East resulted in numerous escalations mounting hostilities most notably with Hezbollah military groups.The tension between Israel and Hezbollah has a long history.

The long history of conflicts and tension between Israel and Lebanon

Over the recent decades the Lebanese-Israeli conflict has been witnessing a noticeable escalation and mounting tension resulting in several conflicts reshaping the geopolitical landscape of the Middle East region.

The Israeli-Lebanese conflicts revolved around a series of military clashes and involved Syria and the Palestine Liberation Organization. The lebanese-Israeli tension reached its peak in 1980 when the Palestine Liberation Organization recruited militants from lebanon among the Palestinian refugees who fled after the creation of Israel in 1948 

Furthermore two years after PLO recruited militants from Lebanon 1982 Israel invaded southern Lebanon during Ariel Sharon's term as former Israeli prime minister with the aim of destroying the infrastructure of the Palestinian Liberation Organization. In 1985 Israel withdrew to the Litani River in south Lebanon and created what was known as the security zone. The Israeli occupation continued to 2000.

In 1993 Israel carried out what was known as retaliation after Hezbollah killed at least 5 Israeli soldiers during the  day war incident the conflict resulted in the bombing of thousands of buildings and the death of more than 100 Lebanese civilians.

The rising tension between Israel and Lebanese Hezbollah has intensified since the start of war on Gaza in October 2023 48 hours after the death of 12 Drouze children who were the victims of bombing of the Israeli occupied Golan Heights. In response Israel conducted a strike on the outskirts of Beirut to eliminate Fouad Shakur, one of the Shiite movement’s senior military officers whom Israel deemed responsible for the attack on Golan.

In 2006 tension between Israel and the Hezbollah military group peaked again when a group of Hezbollah members managed to kidnap two Israeli soldiers which resulted  in retaliation by Israel by bombing south Lebanon causing the death of more than 1200 Lebanese people, mostly civilians.

Moreover the recent Pagers explosions reignited the age old hostilities between Lebanese military groups Hezbollah and Israel as Lebanese officials condemned Israel for their treacherous war crimes and Hezbollah leader vows to avenge his fallen members and innocent civilians.

Bottomline

The history of tension between Lebanon and Israel has indeed extensive roots and it is one of the most marked conflicts in the Middle East region as the tension has been witnessing various phases of escalations that are fueled by many factors making peace efforts and resolutions more challenging.