2006 Lebanon War - Background

Background

Cross-border attacks from southern Lebanon into Israel by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) date as far back as 1968, and followed the Six-Day War; the area became a significant base for attacks following the arrival of the PLO leadership and its Fatah brigade following their 1971 expulsion from Jordan. Starting about this time, increasing demographic tensions related to the Lebanese National Pact, which had divided governmental powers among religious groups throughout the country 30 years previously, began running high and led in part to the Lebanese Civil War (1975–1990). Concurrently, Syria began a 29 year military occupation in 1976. Israel's 1978 invasion of Lebanon failed to stem the Palestinian attacks in the long run, but Israel invaded Lebanon again in 1982 and forcibly expelled the PLO. Israel withdrew to a borderland buffer zone in southern Lebanon, held with the aid of proxy militants in the South Lebanon Army (SLA). The invasion however, also led to the conception of a new Shi'a militant group, which in 1985, established itself politically under the name Hezbollah, and declared an armed struggle to end the Israeli occupation of Lebanese territory. When the Lebanese civil war ended and other warring factions agreed to disarm, both Hezbollah and the SLA refused. Ten years later, Israel withdrew from South Lebanon to the UN-designated and internationally recognized Blue Line border in 2000.

The withdrawal also led to the immediate collapse of the SLA, and Hezbollah took control of the area in rapid succession. Later citing continued Israeli control of the disputed Shebaa farms region and the internment of Lebanese prisoners in Israel, Hezbollah intensified its cross-border attacks, and used the tactic of seizing soldiers from Israel as leverage for a prisoner exchange in 2004.