2006 Hezbollah Cross-border Raid - Background

Background

In 2000 Israel suddenly reversed it policy towards Lebanon and after 22 years of occupation it withdrew from the southern part of the country. Hezbollah considered this a great victory. Hezbollah still had issues with Israel, in addition to purely ideological ones. Radical elements within Hezbollah, led by Intelligence chief Imad Mughniya, in 2000 formed a “Committee for the Elimination of Israel” inside the movement.

According to Hezbollah Israel still occupied Lebanese territory. It did not recognize the “blue line” drawn by the United Nations. Most importantly it claimed the area of the so-called Shebaa farms which was occupied by Israel in 1967 in the war against Syria but according to Lebanon the area had been Lebanese. Later studies conducted by the United Nations has confirmed that the area in fact was Lebanese.

In a landmark prisoner exchange via German mediation in January 2004, 450 Lebanese prisoners held in Israeli jails were exchanged for the bodies of three Israeli soldiers and a captured IDF colonel. The long-time Lebanese prisoner Samir al-Quntar was excluded from the deal. The government of Israel, however, had agreed to a “further arrangement”, whereby Israel would release Samir al-Quntar if it was supplied with “tangible information on the fate of captive navigator Ron Arad”.

According to Harel and Issacharoff the second phase of the prisoner exchange deal was only a “legal gimmick”. Israel was not satisfied with the information supplied by Hezbollah and refused to release al-Quntar. “Cynics may well ask whether it was worth getting entangled in the Second Lebanon War just to keep Kuntar (…) in prison for an extra few years.”

The covert war between Hezbollah and Israel was slowly heating up. Hezbollah leader Ghaleb Awali was assassinated in a car bomb attack in the Dahiya in Beirut in July 2004. Israel was the main suspect. As Zvi Bar’el commented; "Awali's killing sends a new message: Israel can get to Hezbollah anywhere in Lebanon". Hezbollah retaliated by letting a sniper in Ayta ash-Sha’b shoot two Israeli soldiers at the Nurit post just across the border.

In January 2005 Nasrallah confirmed that "all options are open" concerning the means to get al-Quntar and the remaining prisoners back. The Lebanese government also demanded that Israel return all Lebanese prisoners and bodies to Lebanon.

A third issue was Israel's systematic violations of Lebanese territory since its withdrawal in 2000. According to the speaker of the Lebanese parliament, Nabih Berri the Lebanese had violated the Blue Line less than 100 times between 2000 and 2006, while "the number of Israeli violations was 11 782 times, by air, sea and land" during the same time.

On 21 November 2005, Hezbollah guerrillas infiltrated Israeli-occupied territory at Ghajar in a failed attempt to kidnap soldiers. Four Hezbollah fighters were killed, and in response, Israel launched air strikes and artillery at Hezbollah positions in southern Lebanon. During the brief clash, Hezbollah also launched rockets at towns in northern Israel.

On 28 May 2006, less than two months before the Lebanon War began, Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel in response to the killing in Lebanon of Mahmoud al-Majzoub. Israel retaliated by launching air strikes on Hezbollah bases in Lebanon and firing artillery across the border. The fighting was described as the most intense since the Israeli withdrawal in 2000, though it was over quickly due to a UN-sponsored cease fire.

The IDF wanted to avoid all confrontations with Hezbollah but was frustrated by the lack of action on the political level. It knew that Hezbollah was not interested in hitting Israeli civilian targets. It adopted a policy of “zero targets” implying that IDF presence was reduced to a minimum whenever the risk of Hezbollah abduction attempts was deemed to be high. Ironically, during alerts, the “red zones” along the border became off-limit to military personal but were open to civilian traffic. On 8 July, Udi Adam, the head of Northern Command, even took his wife for a drive in a civilian car in one of the red zones.

The head of Northern Command Maj. Gen. Adam warned, only a day before the abduction, in a meeting with Prime Minister Olmert, Defence Minister Peretz Chief-of-Staff Halutz and some generals: “We’re on the verge of another event on the Lebanese border…It’s a stagnant swamp there. If we don’t progress on the Shaba’a Farms issue and the Lebanese prisoners, this story will blow up in our faces”

In the months leading up to the 12 July attack, Lt. Col. Ishai Efroni reported seeing increased activity across the fenceline, including more brazen Hezbollah patrols. He had repeatedly seen burden-laden donkeys, which he had believed were being led by innocent farmers, but after the incident suspected were laden with arms and equipment. After the 28 May rocket attack, the colonel, who at 41 had spent much of his career along the northern border, "got the feeling something had changed."

Hezbollah had carved a hollow from the underbrush, just above the Israeli border patrol track. The "camp was stocked with food, water, radios, rifles, antitank missiles and diagrams detailing the insignia and size of Israeli military units."