(Clockwise from top left): People, who fled their villages in southern Lebanon, take refuge at a school turned temporary shelter in the capital Beirut; Smoke billows over southern Lebanon as pictured from Marjayoun, near the border with Israel; Firefighters work to extinguish a fire after a rocket, fired from Lebanon, hit a local municipality storage in Kiryat Shmona, northern Israel; and Lebanese citizens who fled from the southern villages amid ongoing Israeli airstrikes on Sept. 23, sit in a pickup in Beirut.
| Photo Credit: AFP, Reuters and AP

After Palestinian militant group Hamas carried out the deadliest attack in Israeli history on October 7, 2023, Israel responded with a devastating military campaign in the Gaza Strip.

The air and ground operation has killed more than 41,700 people, according to the Hamas-ruled territory’s Health Ministry, whose figures are considered reliable by the United Nations.

Hamas attacks

At dawn on October 7, hundreds of Hamas fighters infiltrate Israel.

The unprecedented attack results in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures. This toll includes hostages who subsequently died or were killed in captivity in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas took 251 hostages back to Gaza, some as corpses. A year later, some 64 are still detained, while 117 have been freed and 70 confirmed dead.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vows to destroy Hamas, which is blacklisted as a “terrorist” organisation by the European Union and the United States.

Ground offensive

Israel begins bombing Gaza and further tightening its siege of the territory. On October 13, 2023, it tells civilians in northern Gaza to move south.

The United Nations later estimates that nearly all of Gaza’s population of 2.4 million is eventually displaced.

On October 27, 2023, Israel launches a ground offensive. On November 15, 2023, its troops raid Gaza’s biggest hospital, Al-Shifa, where Israel says Hamas has a command centre, an accusation the militants deny.

Truce and hostage swap

On November 24, 2023, a weeklong truce between Israel and Hamas takes effect.

Hamas releases 80 Israeli hostages in return for 240 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons. Twenty-five other hostages, mainly Thai farm workers, are also freed. Israel allows more aid into Gaza via Egypt, but the humanitarian situation there remains dire.

When fighting resumes, Israel expands its actions into southern Gaza.

Aid hitches

On February 29, Gaza’s Health Ministry says 120 northern Gaza residents were shot dead by Israeli forces as they rushed towards a convoy of food aid. Israel says soldiers believed they “posed a threat”.

From early March, several countries airdrop aid into Gaza. A first aid ship from Cyprus arrives on March 15. On April 1, seven aid workers from the U.S. charity World Central Kitchen are killed in an Israeli strike, which the military calls a “tragic mistake”.

Israel-Iran tensions

On April 13, 2024, Iran pounds Israel with drones and missiles in retaliation for a deadly strike on its consulate in Damascus blamed on its arch-enemy. Most of the projectiles are intercepted.

Operations in the south

On May 7, 2024, the Israeli army launches a ground offensive in Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, where a majority of the territory’s people have sought shelter.

It takes control of the border crossing with Egypt, blocking a key entry point for aid, and targets safe areas, including tent camps and schools sheltering displaced people.

“On July 13, 2024, a strike in southern Gaza kills the chief of Hamas’s armed wing, Mohammed Deif,” Israel says.

Regional flare-up feared

On July 20, 2024, Israel attacks Yemen in retaliation for a deadly drone strike on Tel Aviv by the Iran-backed Houthi rebels, who have repeatedly attacked Red Sea and Gulf of Aden shipping in solidarity with Gaza.

On the Israel-Lebanon border, almost daily exchanges of fire between the Israeli army and Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah intensify. On July 27, 2024, in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, 12 children are killed in a rocket strike. Hezbollah denies responsibility.

Hezbollah’s top commander, Fuad Shukr, is killed in a Beirut suburb on July 30 in a retaliatory strike.

The next day, Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh is killed in a strike in Iran, blamed on Israel. Hamas names Yahya Sinwar, its leader in Gaza, to replace him.

Truce talks

Washington on August 16, 2024 presents a new truce deal, which Hamas immediately rejects. Negotiations mediated by Egypt, then Qatar, resume on August 22, 2024.

On August 25, Israel says it has thwarted a large-scale Hezbollah attack with air strikes into Lebanon. Hamas says it successfully launched hundreds of rockets and drones at Israel.

West Bank raid

On August 28, 2024, Israel launches a major operation against Palestinian militants in the occupied West Bank.

The United Nations calls for an immediate end to the raid.

After the military recovers the bodies of six hostages from Gaza on August 31, pressure mounts on the Israeli government to secure the release of the remaining captives, but Mr. Netanyahu does not budge over a truce.

Lebanon attacks

On September 17 and 18, 2024, thousands of Hezbollah members’ pagers and walkie-talkies explode across Lebanon, killing at least 39 people and wounding almost 3,000.

Israel had announced it was expanding its Gaza war aims to include securing the northern front with Lebanon, but does not claim responsibility.

Amid a mounting series of bombardments against Hezbollah, on September 27, 2024, an Israeli strike on its south Beirut stronghold kills the group’s leader Hassan Nasrallah alongside an Iranian general in the Revolutionary Guards.

Iran’s Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vows that Mr. Nasrallah’s death “will not be in vain”.

On October 1, 2024, Iran launches a barrage of missiles at Israel in what the Revolutionary Guards say is a response to the killings of Nasrallah and Haniyeh.

The attack comes the day Israel announced limited ground operations against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. More than 1,900 people have also been killed in Lebanon since Hezbollah and Israel began clashing last October, according to Lebanon’s health minister.

Lebanon has blamed Israel for the sabotage of thousands of pagers that caused them to explode, killing several people and wounding thousands, in an apparent bid to weaken the Islamist militant group Hezbollah. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied responsibility for the attack, which came after almost a year of cross-border rocket fire between the two sides in a second front to the war in Gaza. 

United Nations, government and tech-industry officials were left scratching their heads over how the co-ordinated series of blasts had been carried out, though veterans of Israel’s intelligence agencies Mossad and Shin Bet have opened up about assassinations in the past – some of which required high levels of technical or operational ingenuity.

Deadly Phone Call

Shin Bet used a mobile phone secretly fitted with explosives to kill Yahya Ayyash, a master bombmaker from Hamas nicknamed “the Engineer,” in Gaza in 1996. A Palestinian go-between gave Ayyash the phone to receive a call from his father. When Israeli eavesdroppers verified it was Ayyash’s voice on the line, the phone was remotely detonated, causing a lethal head injury.

Neck Poison

In retaliation for a series of Hamas suicide bombings in 1997, then first-term Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the killing of the Palestinian Islamist group’s politburo chief, Khaled Mashaal, in the Jordanian capital of Amman. 

Two undercover Mossad officers sprayed poison onto Meshaal’s nape as he left his car for an appointment, with one of them opening a pre-shaken can of Coca-Cola to provide an innocent explanation for the rogue liquid. The plan failed because Meshaal’s daughter ran after him, prompting an aide to turn around and notice the would-be assassins. 

They were captured by Jordanian police, and repatriated only after Israel provided an antidote to save Meshaal’s life.

Fake Tourists

Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, an international arms procurer for Hamas, was found dead in his Dubai hotel room in 2010. Emirati authorities initially deemed it death by natural causes but re-opened the case after the Gaza-based Palestinian group accused Israel of killing him. 

The subsequent investigation uncovered CCTV footage of a Mossad hit team, using cloned European passports and posing as tennis-playing tourists, businesspeople, or hotel staff, surveilling Mabhouh and converging on his hotel room. An autopsy determined that Mabhouh had been sedated and smothered.

Traffic Blasts

Between 2010 and 2020, about half a dozen Iranian nuclear scientists were killed or wounded in gun attacks or explosions that authorities blamed on Israel. Most of them were caused by magnetized bombs that had been attached to vehicles by passing motorcyclists, according to Iranian state media reports. 

Israel hasn’t confirmed it was behind any of the strikes, though its officials acknowledged being locked in a shadow war with Iran. A former Israeli prime minister, Naftali Bennett, would later claim responsibility for a similar assassination in the Iranian capital in 2022.

Satellite Sniper

Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, Iran’s chief nuclear scientist, was shot dead while driving in a convoy on the outskirts of Tehran in 2020. Some Iranian media reports said Israel used a satellite-controlled sniper rifle mounted on the back of a pick-up truck and equipped with AI face recognition. Israel didn’t confirm the killing, though Netanyahu had previously identified Fakhrizadeh as head of a secret Iranian nuclear weapons program, saying: “Remember his name.”

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

At least 32 people were killed and more than 3,250 injured as walkie-talkies and pagers used by Hezbollah members blew up in its strongholds across Lebanon in the last two days, stoking fears of an all-out war with Israel.

Here Are Top Points On Hezbollah-Israel Tensions

One could easily dismiss it as a spy film plot if it weren’t so real: a highly sophisticated ‘pager attack’ purportedly by Israeli agencies has left dozens dead and opened a new front in the ongoing Gaza crisis. Nine people were reported killed and over 2,700, including civilians, were injured when a series of text pagers supposedly used by Hezbollah members exploded in various parts of the country. Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, was also injured in the explosions.

Reports suggest Israel had intercepted the group’s supply chains and laced more than 5,000 of these devices with explosives. A Taiwanese company, Gold Apollo, has denied charges that it was the provider of the consignment. Earlier, in February, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah had warned his group against the use of mobile phones. 

More Complexity To Deal With

Israel has not officially taken credit for the attack. However, the incident adds one more layer to an intricate and clandestine face-off between Israeli agencies and the Lebanese militia group as both try to avoid a full-scale confrontation. 

The intent behind such an audacious attack appears to be to inflict a psychological and strategic blow rather than a tactical one. The attack would be added to a not-too-long but notable list of Israeli operations in the recent past that have primarily been designed to highlight the state’s intrusions within its enemy’s infrastructure, whether political, military, or technological. Examples include the use of automated AI-assisted weapons to assassinate Iranian scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh on the outskirts of Tehran in 2021, the elimination of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in central Tehran a few months ago, and various other clandestine operations aimed at disrupting Iran’s nuclear programme. The basic idea behind these operations, including ones now involving low-grade tech like pagers, is optics, to show that the Israeli state can target its detractors at the time and place of its choosing.

The cat-and-mouse game between Hezbollah and Israel has been on the brink of turning into a full conflict for months now. Recently, Israel flew fighter jets over Beirut just before a sermon by Nasrallah, to show force and awareness. It has also been on a mission to eliminate his immediate deputies, such as Fuad Shukr. Recent reports have once again suggested that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may look to remove Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who has criticised the way decisions have been taken on the war in Gaza. Despite the political fault lines within Israel on these issues – including the far too public discrepancies between civil and military leaderships – there is a consensus to target both Hamas and Hezbollah in order to secure long-term security narratives, which were deemed lost after the October 7 terror attack.

Will Iran Intervene?

As a critical part of the ‘Axis of Resistance’, Hezbollah, backed by Iran, remains strong compared to Hamas, which has seen its fighting strength deplete significantly in recent months. Also, in choosing not to join Hamas in the aftermath of the October 2023 attack in Israel, Hezbollah managed to buy some time. The reason for this approach could be attributed to two lines of thinking. First, direct aggression against Israel in the country’s north would in all likelihood not only invite a response of Israeli air power but that of the US as well, causing mass casualties on the ground in Lebanon, for which Hezbollah would have to be answerable. Second, there seems to be a lack of clarity on whether Iran would directly intervene in support of the said axis. For instance, Tehran hasn’t yet directly responded to the killing of Haniyeh.

Hezbollah thus seemingly prefers a more protracted response, causing nuisance and displacement in Israel’s north instead of going for a traditional, full-scale border conflict that it very well will not be able to afford.

Simultaneously, the growing tensions between Israel and Hezbollah are threatening to jeopardise diplomatic tracks being promoted by the likes of the US to put a ceasefire in place. Israeli hostages remain under Hamas captivity in Gaza, and Israeli military operations in response are set to continue. Netanyahu has made no qualms in admitting that such warfare will prevail till Hamas is eliminated.

A Psychological Strike

Ultimately, both Hamas and Netanyahu have, in their own way, obstructed ceasefire efforts. A political settlement today will require a prolonged secession of hostilities. While Nasrallah claims that his group does not want total war, both sides are sliding towards tactical exchanges. But even these tactical attacks can very well lead to a broader conflict. 

With the latest explosions, Hezbollah’s ‘low-tech’ pager communication network has already been busted, making it harder for the group to operate, debate, and deploy forces. In the short term, if not tactically, Israel has been managing to secure at least psychological victories against Hezbollah and its ilk. In the long term, things remain as uncertain as before. It won’t be surprising if the Gaza crisis and accompanying regional tensions spill well into 2025.

[Kabir Taneja is a Fellow with the Strategic Studies Programme at the Observer Research Foundation. He is the author of ‘The ISIS Peril: The World’s Most Feared Terror Group and its Shadow on South Asia’ (Penguin Viking, 2019)]

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author