Smoke billows following Israeli strikes, in Nabatieh, southern Lebanon, on May 19, 2026.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

File photo of Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

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

Peacekeepers of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) stand at a position formerly held Iran-backed Hezbollah in the Khraibeh Valley in el-Meri in south Lebanon on August 27, 2025.
| Photo Credit: AFP

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An arrest warrant has been issued against Netanyahu and his Defence Minister Yoav Gallant

Beirut:

US special envoy Amos Hochstein said in Beirut Tuesday that an end to the Israel-Hezbollah war was “now within our grasp” as he met officials to discuss a truce plan largely endorsed by Lebanon.

The United States and France have spearheaded efforts for a ceasefire in the war, which escalated in late September after nearly a year of deadly exchanges of fire between Hezbollah and Israeli troops.

Israel expanded the focus of its operations from Gaza to Lebanon, vowing to secure its northern border to allow tens of thousands of people displaced by the cross-border fire to return home.

Since the clashes began with Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel, more than 3,544 people in Lebanon have been killed, authorities have said.

Most of the deaths have been since late September, among them more than 200 children, according to the United Nations.

After meeting with Hezbollah-allied parliament speaker Nabih Berri, who has led mediation on behalf of the group, Hochstein told reporters he saw “a real opportunity” to end the fighting.

“I’m here in Beirut to facilitate that decision, but it’s ultimately the decision of the parties… It is now within our grasp.”

Berri told pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat after the meeting that “the situation is good, in principle”, adding his team and US representatives still had “some technical details” to settle.

Hochstein also met Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati and army chief Joseph Aoun.

A Lebanon-based diplomat, requesting anonymity, said “progress” had been made in the talks.

A Lebanese official said Monday that the government had “a very positive view” of the truce plan.

But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that Israel would continue to conduct military operations against Hezbollah even if a ceasefire was reached.

“We will be forced to ensure our security in the north (of Israel) and to systematically carry out operations against Hezbollah’s attacks… even after a ceasefire”, to keep the group from rebuilding, he told parliament.

Deaths in Lebanon, Israel 

Hezbollah began its cross-border attacks in support of its ally Hamas following the Palestinian group’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which sparked the war in Gaza.

Hamas’s attack resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said the death count from the resulting war had reached 43,972 people, the majority civilians. The United Nations considers the figures reliable.

Of 251 hostages seized during the October 7 attack, 97 remain in Gaza including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.

Netanyahu, in a video showing him inside Gaza and wearing a flak jacket and helmet, on Tuesday offered a $5-million reward to anyone in the territory “who brings out a hostage”.

Since expanding its operations to Lebanon in September, Israel has conducted extensive bombing campaigns primarily targeting Hezbollah strongholds.

The UN said Tuesday that more than 200 children had been killed in Lebanon since Israel escalated its campaign.

“Despite more than 200 children killed in Lebanon in less than two months, a disconcerting pattern has emerged: their deaths are met with inertia from those able to stop this violence,” said UN children’s agency spokesman James Elder.

Israel has also sent ground troops into southern Lebanon, where it said Tuesday one soldier had been killed in combat and three wounded.

Lebanon’s army said three soldiers were killed when Israel struck their position in south Lebanon on Tuesday.

Hezbollah has continued to launch rockets, drones and missiles into Israel almost daily.

On Tuesday, Israel’s military said some 40 projectiles were fired into central and northern Israel, lightly wounding four people.

That followed salvos on Monday that killed one woman in Shfaram and wounded 10 people there and five in Israel’s commercial hub Tel Aviv.

Hezbollah said Tuesday it had launched “a salvo of missiles” at the Glilot military intelligence base in the Tel Aviv suburbs.

It said it also attacked Israeli troops in four places in south Lebanon, including near the flashpoint town of Khiam.

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) later said four Ghanaian peacekeepers were wounded when a rocket, “fired most likely by non-state actors”, hit their base.

Another base in Shamma “was impacted by five rockets”, UNIFIL said, and elsewhere “an armed person directly fired at” a patrol.

It did not report wounded or specify who was behind those incidents.

Israel’s military accused Hezbollah of firing on the peacekeepers.

‘Everyone’s interest’ 

US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said Monday the full implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the last Hezbollah-Israel war in 2006, was “what we believe is in everyone’s interest”.

Under the resolution, Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers should be the only armed forces deployed in south Lebanon, where Hezbollah holds sway.

A Lebanese official said US ambassador Lisa Johnson had discussed the truce plan last week with Mikati and Berri.

If an agreement was reached, he said, the United States and France would issue a joint statement, followed by a 60-day truce during which Lebanon would deploy troops in the south.

However, Eyal Pinko, a retired Israeli navy commander and senior research fellow at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar Ilan University near Tel Aviv, said hopes for a speedy ceasefire were “wishful thinking”.

“The most important thing that is required is that there will be no Hezbollah 30 to 40 kilometres (20 to 25 miles) from the border so that Israel can protect itself if there is a ground manoeuvre,” Pinko said.

“Iran and Hezbollah would not accept that.”

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

A child looks on, as members of security forces attempt to evict displaced people from an old hotel, amid ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, in the Hamra neighbourhood of Beirut, Lebanon on October 21, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

The U.N. said Tuesday (November 19, 2024) that over 200 children have been killed in Lebanon in the less than two months since Israel escalated its attacks targeting Hezbollah.

“Despite more than 200 children killed in Lebanon in less than two months, a disconcerting pattern has emerged: their deaths are met with inertia from those able to stop this violence,” James Elder, spokesman for the UN children’s agency, UNICEF, told reporters in Geneva.

Also read | Lebanon, Hezbollah agree to U.S. proposal for ceasefire with Israel: Lebanese official

“Over the last two months in Lebanon, an average of three children have been killed every single day,” he said.

“Many, many more have been injured and traumatised,” he added, highlighting that in the past two months, more than 1,100 children had been hurt in the violence.

Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel in October last year in support of the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza.

Since September, Israel has conducted extensive bombing campaigns in Lebanon primarily targeting Hezbollah strongholds, though some strikes have hit areas outside the Iran-backed group’s control.

Since the clashes began with Hezbollah attacks on Israel, more than 3,510 people in Lebanon have been killed, according to authorities in the country, with most fatalities recorded since late September.

Elder said that since the war erupted in Gaza after October 7 last year, at least 231 children had been killed in Lebanon.

“We must hope humanity never again witnesses the ongoing level of carnage of children in Gaza, though there are chilling similarities for children in Lebanon,” he said.

He pointed to the hundreds of thousands of children who have become homeless in Lebanon, and “disproportionate attacks, of which many frequently hit infrastructure children rely on”.

“Medical facilities are being attacked and health workers are being killed at an increasing speed,” he said.

He highlighted that as of November 15, more than 200 health workers had been killed and 300 injured, according to Lebanese authorities.

“The most worrying parallel to Gaza,” he said, was that “the escalation of children killed is eliciting no meaningful response from those with influence”.

“In Lebanon, much the same as has become the case in Gaza, the intolerable is quietly transforming into the acceptable. And the appalling is slipping into the realm of the expected.”

People gather outside American University of Beirut Medical Center (AUBMC) as more than 1,000 people, including Hezbollah fighters and medics, were wounded when the pagers they use to communicate exploded across Lebanon, according to a security source, in Beirut, Lebanon, on September 17, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Taiwan said on Monday (November 11, 2024) it had closed a probe into pagers that exploded in Lebanon in September and caused a deadly blow to Iran-backed Hezbollah, saying no Taiwanese citizens or companies were involved.

Security sources have previously said the pagers carried the name of Taiwan-based Gold Apollo, a company that has asserted that it did not make them. Taiwan’s government has also said the pagers were not made in Taiwan.

Taipei prosecutors, who were investigating the case, said in a statement the AR-924 pager model that exploded in Lebanon was manufactured, traded, and shipped by a firm called Frontier Group Entity, and made outside of Taiwan. They added, however, that Gold Apollo had authorised the company to use the Apollo trademark.

Also Read: Thousands injured in deadly pager explosions across Lebanon and Syria | Key facts

“There is no evidence indicating that any domestic manufacturers or individuals were accomplices in the relevant explosions, violating the Counter-Terrorism Financing Act, or engaging in other illegal activities,” the prosecutors said in a statement.

“No concrete evidence of criminal activity has been discovered in this case, nor have any specific individuals been implicated in any criminal activity, following a comprehensive investigation,” it said.

Smoke rises from an Israeli airstrike on Dahiyeh, in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, early Friday, Nov. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
| Photo Credit: AP

Israeli naval forces captured a senior Hezbollah operative in north Lebanon, an Israeli military official said Saturday, as the conflict between the Iran-backed group and Israel showed few signs of easing.

Earlier on Saturday, Lebanese authorities said it was investigating whether Israel was behind the capture of a Lebanese sea captain who was taken away by a group of armed men who had landed on the coast near the northern town of Batroun on Friday.

“The operative has been transferred to Israeli territory and is currently being investigated,” the military official said, without providing the name of the person in detention.

The operation marks the first time Israel has announced it deployed troops deep into northern Lebanon to take a senior Hezbollah operative captive since the conflict between the two sides escalated in late September. Since then, Israeli forces began a ground invasion of southern Lebanon and intensified its airstrikes across the country, including southern Beirut and the eastern Bekaa valley, killing most of Hezbollah’s senior commanders.

Hezbollah issued a statement describing what happened as a “Zionist aggression in the Batroun area.” The statement did not give details or confirm whether a Hezbollah member was captured by Israel.

Two Lebanese military officials confirmed to The Associated Press that a naval force landed in Batroun, about 30 kilometers (18 miles) north of Beirut, and abducted a Lebanese citizen. Neither gave the man’s identity or said whether he was thought to have links to Lebanon’s Hezbollah group. They did not confirm whether the armed men were an Israeli force.

Three Lebanese judicial officials told AP the operation took place at dawn Friday, adding that the captain might have links with Hezbollah. The officials said an investigation is looking into whether the man is linked to Hezbollah or working for an Israeli spy agency and an Israeli force came to rescue him.

Both the military and judicial officials spoke on the condition of anonymity as they were unauthorized to share details about the incident or the ongoing investigation.

Soon after Israel went public about the operation, Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati called on Lebanon’s foreign minister to file a complaint against Israel at the U.N. Security Council.

Israel has carried out in the past commando operations deep inside Lebanon to kidnap or kill Hezbollah and Palestinian officials.

Recounting the event, Lebanese residents from the apartment building where the man was seized said the armed group introduced themselves as state security.

“We were terrified. They were breaking into the apartment next to ours,” Hussein Delbani told The Associated Press near where the man was captured. “I thought a state agency was doing a security operation,” said Delbani, who was displaced from south Lebanon a month ago when the Israel-Hezbollah war erupted.

He said he saw from his balcony people down on the coast and they screamed again for him to go inside.

Hamie told Al-Jadeed the man was a captain of civilian ships. He graduated in 2022 and in late September joined the Batroun’s Maritime Sciences and Technology Institute for additional courses. Hamie said that the man lived some 300 meters (980 feet) from the institute.

Hamie’s remarks came shortly after two Lebanese journalists posted a video on social media showing what appeared to be about 20 armed men taking away a man from in front a house, his face covered with his shirt.

Kandice Ardiel, a spokesperson for the U.N. peacekeeping force deployed in south Lebanon, denied allegations by some local journalists who said that the peacekeepers helped the landing force in the operation. The U.N. mission, known as UNIFIL, has a maritime force that monitors the coast.

“Disinformation and false rumors are irresponsible and put peacekeepers at risk,” Ardiel said.

Hezbollah began firing rockets, drones and missiles from Lebanon into Israel in solidarity with Hamas immediately after the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, which triggered the war in Gaza. The yearlong cross-border fighting boiled over to full-blown war on Oct. 1, when Israeli forces launched a ground invasion of southern Lebanon for the first time since 2006.

Smoke rises from an Israeli airstrike on Dahiyeh, in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, early Friday, Nov. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
| Photo Credit: AP

Israeli naval forces captured a senior Hezbollah operative in north Lebanon, an Israeli military official said Saturday, as the conflict between the Iran-backed group and Israel showed few signs of easing.

Earlier on Saturday, Lebanese authorities said it was investigating whether Israel was behind the capture of a Lebanese sea captain who was taken away by a group of armed men who had landed on the coast near the northern town of Batroun on Friday.

“The operative has been transferred to Israeli territory and is currently being investigated,” the military official said, without providing the name of the person in detention.

The operation marks the first time Israel has announced it deployed troops deep into northern Lebanon to take a senior Hezbollah operative captive since the conflict between the two sides escalated in late September. Since then, Israeli forces began a ground invasion of southern Lebanon and intensified its airstrikes across the country, including southern Beirut and the eastern Bekaa valley, killing most of Hezbollah’s senior commanders.

Hezbollah issued a statement describing what happened as a “Zionist aggression in the Batroun area.” The statement did not give details or confirm whether a Hezbollah member was captured by Israel.

Two Lebanese military officials confirmed to The Associated Press that a naval force landed in Batroun, about 30 kilometers (18 miles) north of Beirut, and abducted a Lebanese citizen. Neither gave the man’s identity or said whether he was thought to have links to Lebanon’s Hezbollah group. They did not confirm whether the armed men were an Israeli force.

Three Lebanese judicial officials told AP the operation took place at dawn Friday, adding that the captain might have links with Hezbollah. The officials said an investigation is looking into whether the man is linked to Hezbollah or working for an Israeli spy agency and an Israeli force came to rescue him.

Both the military and judicial officials spoke on the condition of anonymity as they were unauthorized to share details about the incident or the ongoing investigation.

Soon after Israel went public about the operation, Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati called on Lebanon’s foreign minister to file a complaint against Israel at the U.N. Security Council.

Israel has carried out in the past commando operations deep inside Lebanon to kidnap or kill Hezbollah and Palestinian officials.

Recounting the event, Lebanese residents from the apartment building where the man was seized said the armed group introduced themselves as state security.

“We were terrified. They were breaking into the apartment next to ours,” Hussein Delbani told The Associated Press near where the man was captured. “I thought a state agency was doing a security operation,” said Delbani, who was displaced from south Lebanon a month ago when the Israel-Hezbollah war erupted.

He said he saw from his balcony people down on the coast and they screamed again for him to go inside.

Hamie told Al-Jadeed the man was a captain of civilian ships. He graduated in 2022 and in late September joined the Batroun’s Maritime Sciences and Technology Institute for additional courses. Hamie said that the man lived some 300 meters (980 feet) from the institute.

Hamie’s remarks came shortly after two Lebanese journalists posted a video on social media showing what appeared to be about 20 armed men taking away a man from in front a house, his face covered with his shirt.

Kandice Ardiel, a spokesperson for the U.N. peacekeeping force deployed in south Lebanon, denied allegations by some local journalists who said that the peacekeepers helped the landing force in the operation. The U.N. mission, known as UNIFIL, has a maritime force that monitors the coast.

“Disinformation and false rumors are irresponsible and put peacekeepers at risk,” Ardiel said.

Hezbollah began firing rockets, drones and missiles from Lebanon into Israel in solidarity with Hamas immediately after the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, which triggered the war in Gaza. The yearlong cross-border fighting boiled over to full-blown war on Oct. 1, when Israeli forces launched a ground invasion of southern Lebanon for the first time since 2006.