The
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2006)
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Israel-Lebanon/Hezbollah War—(July 12,
2006-August 14, 2006): The latest chapter in the
ongoing Arab-Israeli Conflict began on July 12,
2006, when guerillas from the Islamic Lebanese
group, Hezbollah (Arabic for "Party of God),
crossed into Israel and attacked an Israeli Defense
Force (IDF) patrol, killing three and capturing two
others. They then returned to southern Lebanon with
their prisoners. Hezbollah's leader, Hassan
Nasrallah, said the men were taken in order to set
up a prisoner exchange with Israel. Israel's Prime
Minister, Ehud Olmert, declared the attack an "act
of war" on Lebanon's part, and promised a strong
response. In
Lebanon, this war is known as the "July War," while
many Israelis call it the "Second Lebanon War."
Hezbollah
launched "Operation True Promise" at 9:05 AM, on
July 12, 2006. The operation began with a
diversionary attack of rockets and mortar shells
fired at Israeli settlements and military posts
near the Israel-Lebanon border. Hezbollah troops
then entered Israel, attacked two armored Israeli
Humvees, patrolling the border village of Zar'it,
with rocket propelled grenades, killing three
soldiers and capturing two others. The Hezbollah
force then retreated back into Lebanon with their
captives, later identified as Ehud Goldwasser and
Eldad Regev. An
Israeli Merkava Mark II tank that was stationed
nearby attempted to pursue the captors into Lebanon
in a rescue attempt, but was hit by an improvise
explosive device (IED), killing all four crew
members. Another Israeli soldier died during an
attempt to recover the bodies from the destroyed
tank After
Hezbollah's cross-border raid, the Israeli military
launched air, naval, and ground attacks at
Hezbollah targets across Lebanon, and Hezbollah
responded by launching hundreds of rockets into
northern Israel, many reaching as far south as the
port city of Haifa. Hezbollah
also damaged an Israeli warship ten miles off the
Lebanese coast with an Iranian-made unmanned drone,
which rammed the ship and exploded. Both
sides continued to trade rocket, missile, and,
artillery attacks, with most of the damage done to
civilian targets on either side of the border.
Israel's strategy seems to be to cut off Lebanon
and Hezbollah from any aid they may receive from
Syria or Iran, who are Hezbollah's main suppliers
of weapons, money, and military
training. For
a trans-border Arab-Israeli war, this conflict was
different than most. Israel at first responded
lightly in the ground war, apparently relying on
the air and artillery campaign to inflict most of
the damage. Hezbollah responded with wave after
wave of rockets and missiles supplied largely by
Syria and Iran over the past several years. Some of
the larger Hezbollah rockets were able to strike
the Israeli port city of Haifa, inflicting damage
and causing civilian casualties. The Israeli
strategy seemed two-fold: cut off Hezbollah from
its suppliers and allies in Syria and Iran, while
also striking Lebanese infrastructure targets with
no apparent connection to Hezbollah. Israel hoped
to show the Lebanese government and people that
Hezbollah brought death and destruction to their
county, hoping that this lesson would turn popular
opinion against the Shiite militia. The opposite
effect seems to have taken hold, however, with most
Lebanese Muslims increasing their approval or
outright support for Hezbollah, while even Lebanese
Christians, normally not friendly to Islamic
parties or militias, blamed Israel for attacking
civilian targets as an act of punishment. While
this political and psychological goal failed,
Israel also failed to stop Hezbollah rocket attacks
on Israeli cities and towns. The air campaign did
not work in terms of increasing Israeli civilian
safety during the war. The
ground campaign also seemed lacking. Unlike past
wars, such as the 1956 war against Egypt or the
1967 war against Egypt, Syria and Jordan, or the
1982 invasion of Lebanon, the Israeli military did
not immediately launch powerful assaults on the
ground to root out and destroy their foes. Ground
attacks did occur, largely from the second week on,
but these were individual assaults to take or
neutralize specific targets fairly close to the
border. One significant commando assault did take
place in the northeastern Lebanese city of
Baalbeck, but that was designed as a specific
attack to seize individual Hezbollah leaders. Only
in the days leading up the United Nations-brokered
cease-fire in the middle of August did the Israeli
military launch a powerful drive which took it to
the Litani River in southern Lebanon. On
Hezbollah's side, the war showed that their
guerillas, though technically only a militia,
possessed the training and fighting ability of a
well-trained army division. Technologically, they
surprised Israel with the depth and range of its
missiles. One missile crippled an Israeli naval
ship and sank a commercial freighter off the
Lebanese coast in the early days of the war.
Iranian-made missiles landed as far south as Haifa.
For the first time since before the 1967 war, major
Israeli civilian population centers came under
attack. The
war also showed once again that the Lebanese
government is helpless to defend its own territory
or to keep other countries from fighting proxy wars
and conflicts on its land. Just as when the
Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) moved in
and took over southern Lebanon in the 1970s to
fight its war with Israel, the government shows
that it cannot stop Lebanon from being a
battleground for others. By
August 12, Israel, Lebanon, and Hezbollah all
agreed to a United Nations cease-fire to begin on
Monday the 14th. This war
is a part of the wider Israel-Lebanon
Conflict
which dates from the first Israeli invasion of
Lebanon in 1978. On March
19, 2007, Israel formally declared the 2006
conflict with Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas a war,
but Israel is searching for a name for the 34-day
conflict. On Wednesday July 16 2008,
Israel and Hezbollah initiated deal whereby
Hezbollah turned over the bodies of the two
captured Israeli soldiers, Ehud Goldwasser and
Eldad Regev, in exchange for Lebanese prisoner
Samir Kuntar, four Hezbollah militants captured
during the war, and the bodies of approximately 200
other Lebanese and Palestinian militants held by
Israel. This prisoner swap prompted some criticism
in Israel, especially after it was learned that
Samir Kuntar was one of the released prisoners.
Kumar and the other released militants, were
greeted by a hero's welcome in Beirut. Goldwasser
and Regev Were Killed in Initial
Attack--Israeli National
News.com--July 17, 2008 Copyright
© 1998-2008 Roger A. Lee and History Guy
Media; Last Modified: 07.30.08 Please
cite this source when appropriate: Lee,
R. "The History Guy: The Israel-Lebanon/Hezbollah
War (2006)
" http://www.historyguy.com/israel-lebanon_war_2006.html "The
History Guy" is a Registered Trademark. Combat
Studies
Institute
--Operation Peace for Galilee.
From
Globalsecurity.org Israeli
navy commander resigning over
failure in 2006 Lebanon
war 1982
Lebanon
War -
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Olmert:
We were attacked by a sovereign
country:
YNetnews--video
clip of Prime Minister Olmert
speaking about the July 12
Hezbollah attack.
7-12-06 Eight
IDF soldiers killed, 2 kidnapped
on northern
frontier:Jul.
12, 2006
9:37-The
Jerusalem Post article in which
Prime Minister Olmert calls the
Hezbollah attack an "act of war."
7-12-06 Israel,
Hezbollah Vow Wider War: At Least
66 Dead in Lebanon; Militia
Strikes Warship at
Sea--Washington
Post 7-15-06 From
Wikipedia: Hizbullah's
real goal is racist: To free the
Middle East holy lands of
Jews--By
Alan M. Dershowitz --Opinion
piece from the Christian Science
Monitor Bint
Jbeil: Hezbollah heartland
--BBC
article on a Hezbollah
stronghold Israeli
Media Yedioth
Ahronoth - Israel at War
Lebanese
Media Lebanon
under
Siege
- Lebanese government Roadmap
to
Victory
- The Center for Democracy in
Lebanon History
Will Judge Us All On Our
Actions--by
Michel Aoun in The Wall Street
Journal-July 31, 2006 Lebanon
Live
News
--Lebanese television
station Hezbollah
Media Al-Manar
TV -
Hezbollah television station.
Israeli
Blogs The
Muqata
— Israel@War: Special
Edition at the Mukataa blog
Israel
North
blog -
A compilation of blogs by
Russian-speaking residents of
northern Israel, translated into
English Kishkushim
— Written mainly by Carmia,
a resident of Haifa Idan
Gazit
— A New York born Israeli
immigrant Lebanese
Blogs BloggingBeirut.com
— Finkployd's and other's
regular war dispatches from
Beirut, as featured in the New
York Times Live
from Lebanon
Diaries
— "Commentary, analysis,
human rights and development
information, and diaries from on
the ground" Lebanese
Political
Journal
— In-depth analysis on the
political situation in Lebanon
Israeli
Losses Lebanese/Hezbollah
Losses 95
soldiers killed 345
soldiers wounded 2
captured soldiers (later returned
after their deaths) 1
warship damaged 1
tank destroyed 41civilians
killed 1,293
civilians wounded 300,000
civilians have been displaced by
the fighting as
of 8-12-06 1,130
Lebanese civilians
killed 3,600
Lebanese civilians
wounded 800,000
civilian refugees displaced by
the fighting 36
Lebanese Army soldiers
killed 100
Lebanese Army soldiers
wounded 400
Lebanese Army soldiers
captured 65
Hezbollah troops
killed (Israel
claims to have killed 530
guerillas) 20
Hezbollah troops
captured as
of 8-12-06 PREDECESSOR:
(Related conflicts that occurred
before) Suez/Sinai
War
(1956) 1967
Arab-Israeli War (1967) War
of Attrition (1968-1970) 1973
Arab-Israeli War (1973) Jordanian
Civil War (1970) CONCURRENT:
(Related conflicts occurring at the same
time) Lebanese
Civil War (1975-1991) Israel-Lebanon
Conflict (1978-Present) Syrian
Intervention in Lebanon
(1975-Present) U.S.
Intervention in Lebanon
(1982-1984) SUCCESSOR:
(Related conflicts that occur
later)
A chronicle of newer
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A listing of wars
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Military
operations of the 2006
Israel-Lebanon
conflict
1948
Arab-Israeli War (1948-1949)
Israel-Palestinian
Conflict
(1964-Present)