2024 Israel-Hezbollah War
From 8 October 2023 Hezbollah launched near-daily rocket, drone, and anti-tank fire across the Israel-Lebanon border in what it called a 'support front' for Hamas in Gaza, prompting Israeli strikes on Hezbollah positions and the evacuation of tens of thousands of civilians on both sides of the border. The low-intensity exchange escalated dramatically in September 2024: on 17-18 September, thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah members exploded simultaneously across Lebanon and Syria in a covert Israeli operation, killing dozens and wounding thousands, and shattering Hezbollah's internal communications network days before Israel intensified its air campaign. On 27 September 2024, Israeli aircraft dropped bunker-buster bombs on Hezbollah's central headquarters beneath a Beirut apartment complex, killing Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, who had led the organisation since 1992, along with much of its senior military command. Israel followed with a ground invasion of southern Lebanon in late September, and continued strikes deep into Lebanese territory including Beirut's southern suburbs. A ceasefire brokered by the United States and France took effect on 27 November 2024, providing for Hezbollah's withdrawal north of the Litani River and a Lebanese army deployment to the south. The war left Hezbollah without most of its senior leadership, a large share of its precision-missile arsenal, and its command communications, marking the sharpest degradation of the organisation since its founding in 1982 — a weakening later cited as a precondition for the rebel offensive that toppled the Assad regime in Syria in December 2024, since Assad could no longer count on Hezbollah reinforcements, and for Iran's diminished regional position going into 2025 and 2026.
- Year: 2024 CE
- Category: Military
