Beirut is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. As of 2014, Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, which makes it the third-largest city in the Levant region and the thirteenth-largest in the Arab world. The city is situated on a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanon's Mediterranean coast. Beirut has been inhabited for more than 5,000 years, making it one of the oldest cities in the world.
The 1982 Lebanon War began on 6 June 1982, when the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) invaded southern Lebanon. The invasion followed a series of attacks and counter-attacks between the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) operating in southern Lebanon and the IDF that had caused civilian casualties on both sides of the border. The military operation was launched after gunmen from the Abu Nidal Organization attempted to assassinate Shlomo Argov, Israel's ambassador to the United Kingdom. Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin blamed Abu Nidal's enemy, the PLO, for the incident, and used the incident as a casus belli for the invasion.
Rafic Bahaa El Deen al-Hariri, or Rafiq al-Hariri, was a Lebanese business tycoon and politician, who served as the Prime Minister of Lebanon from 1992 to 1998 and again from 2000 until his resignation on 20 October 2004.
Imad Fayez Mughniyeh, alias al-Hajj Radwan, was a Lebanese militant leader who was the founding member of Lebanon's Islamic Jihad Organization and number two in Hezbollah's leadership. Information about Mughniyeh is limited, but he is believed to have been Hezbollah's chief of staff and understood to have overseen Hezbollah's military, intelligence, and security apparatuses. He was one of the main founders of Hezbollah in the 1980s. He has been described as "a brilliant military tactician and very elusive". He was often referred to as an ‘untraceable ghost’.
Operation Grapes of Wrath, known in Lebanon as the April Aggression, was a seventeen-day campaign of the Israeli Defense Forces against Hezbollah in 1996 which attempted to end rocket attacks on Northern Israel by the organisation. Israel conducted more than 1,100 air raids and extensive shelling. A UNIFIL compound at Qana was hit when Israeli artillery fired on Hezbollah forces operating nearby. 639 Hezbollah cross-border rocket attacks targeted northern Israel, particularly the town of Kiryat Shemona. Hezbollah forces also participated in numerous engagements with Israeli and South Lebanon Army forces. The conflict was de-escalated on 27 April by a ceasefire agreement banning attacks on civilians.
This is a timeline of events related to the 2006 Lebanon War.
The Israeli–Lebanese conflict, or the South Lebanon conflict, is a series of military clashes involving Israel, Lebanon and Syria, the Palestine Liberation Organization, as well as various militias and Militants acting from within Lebanon. The conflict peaked in the 1980s, during the Lebanese Civil War, and has abated since.
Dahieh is a predominantly Shia Muslim suburb, located south of Beirut, in the Baabda District of Lebanon. It is composed of several towns and municipalities. It is a residential and commercial area with malls, stores and souks.
The 2006 Qana airstrike was an airstrike carried out by the Israeli Air Force (IAF) on a three-story building in the small community of al-Khuraybah near the South Lebanese village of Qana on July 30, 2006, during the 2006 Lebanon War. The strike killed 28 civilians, 16 of whom were children. Israel halted airstrikes for 48 hours following the attack, amid increasing calls for a ceasefire in the conflict between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas.
Haret Hreik is a mixed Shia and Maronite Christian municipality, in the Dahieh suburbs, south of Beirut, Lebanon. It is part of the Baabda District. Once an agricultural village, Haret Hreik lost its rural identity due to the wave of refugees from Southern Lebanon who settled in the town and made it another urban neighborhood of Dahieh.
The 2006 Lebanon War, also called the 2006 Israel–Hezbollah War and known in Lebanon as the July War and in Israel as the Second Lebanon War, was a 34-day military conflict in Lebanon, northern Israel and the Golan Heights. The principal parties were Hezbollah paramilitary forces and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). The conflict started on 12 July 2006, and continued until a United Nations-brokered ceasefire went into effect in the morning on 14 August 2006, though it formally ended on 8 September 2006 when Israel lifted its naval blockade of Lebanon. Due to unprecedented Iranian military support to Hezbollah before and during the war, some consider it the first round of the Iran–Israel proxy conflict, rather than a continuation of the Arab–Israeli conflict.
A number of incidents of attack on civilian and UN convoys have been reported. The Israel Defense Forces has disputed involvement in some cases, and has also alleged that no prior coordination took place before some affected convoys set out. These allegations have in turn been disputed. There have also been reports that fear of aerial attack has prevented drivers from transporting humanitarian aid within Lebanon. One estimate two weeks into the conflict placed the number of Lebanese truck drivers who had died as a result of IDF/IAF air strikes on convoys as "dozens".
During the 2006 Lebanon War, allegations of war crimes were made by various groups and individuals, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and United Nations officials, who accused both Hezbollah and Israel of violating international humanitarian law. These have included allegations of intentional attacks on civilian populations or infrastructure, disproportionate or indiscriminate attacks, the use of human shields, and the use of prohibited weapons.
Israel–Lebanon relations have experienced ups and downs since their establishment in the 1940s.
The Dahiya doctrine, or Dahya doctrine, is a military strategy involving the destruction of the civilian infrastructure in order to pressure hostile regimes. It is a type of asymmetric warfare. It endorses the employment of "disproportionate force" to secure that end. The doctrine was outlined by former Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of General Staff Gadi Eizenkot.
The January 2013 Rif Dimashq airstrike was an aerial attack in the Rif Dimashq Governorate of Syria, which targeted a convoy alleged to be carrying weapons from Syria to the Lebanese Shi'a militia Hezbollah. The convoy was attacked on 31 January 2013. According to several media sources, Israeli forces allegedly conducted the strike, however Israel hasn't officially responded to the allegations.
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."
In July 1981, Israeli warplanes began bombarding a number of Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) targets across Lebanon, mostly in Beirut and in the south of the country. This was in response to several Palestinian rocket attacks on northern Israel during the Lebanese Civil War.
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.
