The story so far: As the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran enters its fourth week, another, perhaps more brutal, war is unfolding in the region. On March 16, Israel announced the launch of a ground offensive in Lebanon against Hezbollah. It has also carried out massive air strikes in southern Lebanon and the southern outskirts of Beirut, killing at least 1,000 people and displacing about a million. The ground offensive is concentrated in hilltop towns in southern Lebanon, where the Israel Defence Forces are facing stiff resistance from Hezbollah fighters.
Why did Israel launch the offensive?
On paper, a ceasefire had been reached between Hezbollah and Israel in November 2024. The ceasefire was reached after a month-long campaign aimed at weakening Hezbollah, a Shia militant group and political party in Lebanon that maintains close ties with Iran.
When Israel launched its invasion of Gaza after Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack, Hezbollah fired rockets into the Shebaa Farms, a Lebanese territory occupied by Israel. Israel responded with air strikes, triggering further Hezbollah rocket attacks that displaced thousands of Israelis from the Upper Galilee region.
In September 2024, Israel assassinated Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah in an air strike. The Israeli plan was to disrupt Hezbollah’s command structure before launching a ground offensive. During the ground battle, Israel pushed Hezbollah fighters away from the border and occupied strategically important regions in southern Lebanon. In November that year, Israel agreed to a ceasefire, but it continued air strikes nearly every day in Lebanon, targeting Hezbollah positions. Hezbollah hardly retaliated.
On February 2026, after Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed by a joint Israeli-American air strike, Hezbollah fired hundreds of rockets into northern Israel. Israel retaliated with air strikes, which was followed by the ground offensive.
What is Hezbollah?
Over the past five decades, Israel has carried out multiple attacks in Lebanon. In 1978, Israel launched an incursion into southern Lebanon to push the Palestinian militias based in the region, under the umbrella of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), to the north of the Litani River. In 1982, Israel launched another invasion with the same objective. It managed to force the PLO to relocate from Lebanon, but the consequences of the war led to the rise of Hezbollah as a militant Shia organisation. Iran, where the Shia clergy established an Islamic government in 1979, backed Hezbollah.
When Israeli troops stayed in southern Lebanon to keep a buffer on the Lebanese side of the border, Hezbollah emerged as the major resistance force. Israeli troops, faced with Hezbollah’s guerrilla attacks, were forced to withdraw from Lebanon in 2000 — which was celebrated by Hezbollah as the first “Arab victory against Israel”.
In 2006, Israel attacked Lebanon again, to dismantle Hezbollah’s military infrastructure. After a month-long campaign, Israel had to agree to a ceasefire and pull back. This allowed Hezbollah to rise as a major socio-political and militant movement of Lebanon’s sectarian system, where the army is very weak. But Israel has always called Hezbollah — which it designates as a terrorist outfit alongside the U.S. and their Western partners — an “Iranian proxy”. There was an uneasy calm along the Israel-Lebanon border after the 2006 war, but it was broken by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack.
How strong is Hezbollah today?
Hezbollah, because of its long resistance history and battlefield experience, is generally seen as a powerful fighting force. After the 2006 war, they joined the Syrian civil war to fight alongside the forces of President Bashar al-Assad. Hezbollah’s involvement played a crucial role in turning around the civil war from 2015 to 2018.
Hezbollah, a state within the state in Lebanon, possesses tens of thousands of rockets and missiles. However, in September 2024, Israel’s pager explosions, which targeted Hezbollah’s mid-level commanders, and killed the group’s top leadership, threw it into disarray. Around that time, Abu Mohammed al-Golani, a former al-Qaeda jihadist who was running Syria’s Idlib, started a campaign to take over Damascus. The Syrian Army, which was targeted by hundreds of Israeli air strikes, was in a bad shape. Syria’s three main supporters were Iran, Russia, and Hezbollah. Russia was busy with Ukraine. And Iran’s space for manoeuvre was limited. Hezbollah was pushed back by Israeli attacks. It took only 12 days for Golani’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s Syria branch) to capture Damascus.
The fall of Assad’s government in December cut a vital link between Hezbollah and Iran, which further weakened both sides. From the early 1980s, Iran had provided money, weapons and training to Hezbollah, and Baathist Syria acted as a land bridge between Iran and Syria (through Iraq, at least since 2003). In subsequent months, Israel continued to pound Hezbollah and the group hardly retaliated. But Hezbollah was also using this period to rebuild its command structure and replenish its arsenals, preparing for an eventual war. And when Israel and the U.S. killed Khamenei in February 2026, they joined the war, drawing in thousands of troops into Lebanon.
What does Israel want to achieve?
Israel has declared that it wants to dismantle Hezbollah’s military capabilities, push them away from southern Lebanon, and create a buffer inside the Lebanese territory. Israel has issued evacuation orders for the whole of southern Lebanon and some neighbourhoods in the north of the Litani River. It has bombed some bridges on the river to cut off supplies for Hezbollah. Israel is also pressing the Lebanese government to take action to disarm Hezbollah.
Hezbollah’s version is that it is defending Lebanese territory. It has fired more than 1,000 rockets and drones at Israel since March 2, in a clear message that it still possesses attack capabilities. Israel is also facing stiff resistance in the hilltop towns of southern Lebanon, particularly in Khiam, a high plateau overlooking the Hula Valley in the south. While Israel seeks to push Hezbollah out militarily, an approach it tried several times in the past and failed, Hezbollah, though weakened by regional developments, is resisting with asymmetrical tactics. It is the Lebanese people who are caught in the middle.
Published – March 22, 2026 03:26 am IST
