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August 2024 Lebanon strikes | |||||||
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Part of the Israel–Hezbollah conflict and the spillover of the Israel–Hamas war | |||||||
![]() Map of southern Lebanon | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
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Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Units involved | |||||||
320+ Katyusha rockets | 100 fighter jets | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
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1 Syrian national and 1 Israeli civilian injured |
On 25 August 2024, Israel struck targets in southern Lebanon, that were followed by strikes by Hezbollah. [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]
Israel framed its strikes as "preemptive." According to Lebanese officials, the Israeli military struck forty locations in southern Lebanon with about 100 fighter jets. Shortly after, according to Hezbollah, it launched over 320 rockets at northern Israel as "the first phase" of its response to Israel's July assassination of senior commander Fuad Shukr. [8] [9] [10] [11]
On 30 July 2024, Fuad Shukr, a Hezbollah militant leader, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut. Israel has previously accused Shukr of involvement in the Majdal Shams attack three days prior that killed twelve children and young adults in the disputed Golan Heights.
On 31 July 2024, Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas, was killed in a guesthouse in Tehran. In response to the assassination, Iran has stated that it would respond militarily, accusing Israel of Haniyeh's death; [2] Hezbollah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah stated that the organization had entered new phase in its conflict with Israel in response to Shukr and Haniyeh's deaths. [12]
In the days preceding the strikes, the U.S. and Israel received intelligence showing Hezbollah was preparing to initiate an attack. [13]
Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari stated that domestic intelligence believed that Hezbollah was intending to initiate an imminent "extensive attack"—including rockets, missiles, and drones—on Israel and fired counterstrikes against long-range missiles Hezbollah intended to use. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu managed the operation from Tel Aviv with defense minister Yoav Gallant; Netanyahu convened his security cabinet at 7 a.m. [14]
According to an Israeli official, the U.S. was informed of the operation. [13] According to a U.S. defense official, the United States helped Israel track incoming Hezbollah attacks. [15] According to The New York Times , Hezbollah intended to fire rockets at 5 a.m. and Israel destroyed Hezbollah's missile launchers. [16] Israel sent a hundred fighter jets during its operations. [17] Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant described the strikes as "very successful", stating that "over fifty percent, maybe two-thirds" of Hezbollah's strikes were prevented. [18]
Hezbollah stated the organization began its response to the assassination of Fuad Shukr, targeting a "special military target", Iron Dome platforms, and other sites. [19] [20] [21] In its first stage, Hezbollah claimed that it had fired over 320 rockets at nearly twelve Israeli military bases and positions. [10] [22] [23]
Two Hezbollah militants were killed and one Hezbollah militant and a Syrian national were injured in southern Lebanon, one critically. [24] [25] [26] [27] The Amal movement said one of its fighters from Khiam was killed. [11] Hezbollah confirmed death of their six militants on 25 August. [28]
An Israeli Navy officer was killed by a malfunctioning missile launched by the Iron Dome that struck a Dvora-class fast patrol boat off the coast of Nahariya, northern Israel and two others were injured. [1] [29] [30] A woman was slightly injured by a missile in northern Israel. [31] [32]
Departures and arrivals were canceled at Ben Gurion Airport until 10 a.m.; [2] two El Al flights were diverted. [14] The Golan Regional Council instructed residents of the Golan Heights to remain in their shelters. [33] Yoav Gallant declared an "emergency situation" for two days. [34]
In a conversation with Gallant, U.S. secretary of defense Lloyd Austin discussed avoiding escalating the Israel–Hamas war, according to Gallant. [35] United States National Security Council spokesman Sean Savett stated that president Joe Biden was "closely monitoring events in Israel and Lebanon" and reaffirmed Israel's right to defend itself. [36]
Several incidents have taken place on the Israeli–Syrian ceasefire line during the Syrian Civil War, straining the relations between the countries. The incidents are considered a spillover of the Quneitra Governorate clashes since 2012 and later incidents between Syrian Army and the rebels, ongoing on the Syrian-controlled side of the Golan and the Golan Neutral Zone and the Hezbollah involvement in the Syrian Civil War. Through the incidents, which began in late 2012, as of mid-2014, one Israeli civilian was killed and at least 4 soldiers wounded; on the Syrian-controlled side, it is estimated that at least ten soldiers were killed, as well as two unidentified militants, who were identified near Ein Zivan on Golan Heights.
The January 2015 Mazraat Amal incident was an airstrike against a two-car convoy that killed six Hezbollah fighters, including two prominent commanders, and a general of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), Mohammad Ali Allahdadi, at al-Amal Farms in the Quneitra District of Syria, in the Eastern Golan Heights, on 18 January 2015, during the Syrian Civil War. The attack was largely attributed to Israel, which did not officially confirm that it carried it out. Hezbollah and IRGC held Israel responsible and threatened to retaliate. On 19 January 2015, Al-Nusra Front member Abu Azzam al-Idlibi claimed that Jihad Mughniyeh and the other Hezbollah fighters were killed in an Al-Nusra Front ambush at Jaroud in the Qalamoun Mountains in the Al-Qutayfah District northeast of Damascus, claiming that it "will be the end of the Persian project, God willing."
Jihad Mughniyah was a Lebanese politician and prominent member of the Lebanese Shia militant group Hezbollah, and the son of Imad Mughniyeh. He was killed in 2015 in the Mazraat Amal incident, an airstrike attributed to Israel.
Mohammad Reza Zahedi was an Iranian military officer. A senior figure within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), he had previously commanded the IRGC Aerospace Force and the IRGC Ground Forces, and was commanding the Quds Force in Lebanon and Syria at the time of his death.
The Iran–Israel conflict during the Syrian civil war refers to the Iranian–Israeli standoff in and around Syria during the Syrian conflict. With increasing Iranian involvement in Syria from 2011 onwards, the conflict shifted from a proxy war into a direct confrontation by early 2018.
Lebanese and Hezbollah officials reported that at 2:30 a.m. local time on 25 August 2019, two drones crashed into the Dahieh district of Beirut, Lebanon. According to Lebanese officials, Israel launched a drone attack. Hezbollah denied exploding or targeting the drones. It was the first such incident between Israel and Lebanon since the 2006 Lebanon War.
Exchange of strikes between Israel and Lebanese militant group Hezbollah have been occurring along the Israel–Lebanon border and in Syria and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights since 8 October 2023. It is currently the largest escalation of the Hezbollah–Israel conflict to have occurred since the 2006 Lebanon War, and part of the spillover of the Israel-Hamas war.
Events of the year 2024 in Israel.
Events in the year 2024 in Lebanon.
This is a chronological timeline of the Israel–Hezbollah conflict since October 2023.
Since the beginning of the Israel–Hamas war, which has mostly been confined to southern Israel and the Gaza Strip, a number of armed clashes and standoffs have been reported in other parts of the Middle East, particularly involving Shia Islamist militias backed by Iran. There has been speculation that any escalation of these incidents, specifically between Israel and Hezbollah—an Iranian-backed Shia militia which is based in southern Lebanon and which is more powerful than the Lebanese Armed Forces —could bring the entire region into a full-scale military conflict. In addition to the Israel–Hezbollah conflict, the Iranian-backed Houthi militia—which controls parts of northern Yemen, but is not internationally recognized as the country's government —became directly involved in the conflict by firing missiles at Israeli cities, albeit on a limited scale; the Houthis have since focused more on seizing civilian cargo ships passing through the Red Sea in order to inflict economic losses on Israel and the global economy, evoking American and British airstrikes against Houthi-controlled Yemen. Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and Syria have also mounted numerous attacks against American military bases in the region; these confrontations have increasingly escalated tensions between long-time adversaries Iran and the United States, especially after the 2024 Iranian missile strikes in Iraq and Syria. In the West Bank, over 100 Palestinians have been killed in armed confrontations with Israeli soldiers and Israeli settlers, as violence in the territory increased drastically following the Hamas-led attack on Israel.
In 2024, the Iran–Israel proxy conflict escalated to a brief period of direct confrontation between the two countries. On 1 April, Israel bombed an Iranian consulate complex in Damascus, Syria, killing multiple senior Iranian officials. In response, Iran and its proxies seized the Israeli-linked ship MSC Aries and launched strikes inside Israel on 13 April. Israel then carried out retaliatory strikes in Iran and Syria on 19 April.
On 20 July 2024, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched an attack on Hudaydah Port in Al Hudaydah, Yemen. The attack damaged a power generating station, an oil refinery, fuel storage facilities belonging to the Yemen Petroleum Corporation (YPC), and port cranes. Israel claimed it targeted weapon storage facilities. 14 people were killed, including 12 port employees and more than 90 were injured, many with severe burns.
The Majdal Shams attack, also known as the Majdal Shams massacre, took place on 27 July 2024, when a rocket hit a football pitch in Majdal Shams in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights of Syria. The resulting blast killed 12 Syrian children and young adults belonging to the Druze community and injured at least 42 others, with most of the victims being between the ages of 10 and 16.
On 30 July 2024, Israel conducted an airstrike on an apartment building in Haret Hreik in the suburbs of the Lebanese capital of Beirut, killing Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr, Iranian military adviser Milad Bedi, as well as five Lebanese civilians, including two children, and wounding 80 others.
Fuad Shukr was a Lebanese militant leader who was a senior member of Hezbollah. A member of Hezbollah's founding generation, Shukr was a senior military leader in the organization from the early 1980s. For over four decades, he was one of the group's leading military figures and was a military advisor to its leader Hassan Nasrallah.
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: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)The Israeli army says Hezbollah has failed to strike a military intelligence base near Tel Aviv that the Lebanese armed group's leader says was the target of a rocket and drone barrage.
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: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)Hezbollah said six of its fighters were also killed.
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