- Hezbollah and Israel escalated cross-border attacks, with thousands of projectiles fired in Lebanon and Israel.
- The conflict traces back decades, but fighting intensified after Hezbollah joined Hamas' attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
- Disarmament has failed to happen due partly to Hezbollah's political influence and massive weapons stockpile.
The Iran-backed terrorist organization based in Lebanon, Hezbollah, responded to the late-February strikes on Iran by immediately firing missiles at Israel.
Now that a ceasefire has been reached between the U.S., Israel and Iran, all eyes have shifted toward Lebanon, where Israel and Hezbollah continue to launch strikes at each other.
Fiery disagreement about whether the ceasefire includes Lebanon were stoked by Pakistan’s prime minister on Tuesday, when he announced that the short-term deal did include Israel’s northern neighbor. The U.S. and Israel have said it did not.
Since early March, Hezbollah has fired at least 3,000 projectiles from southern Lebanon at Israel. Some reports show the number is closer to 5,000, including drones, rockets and missiles. In the same time period, Israel reportedly struck more than 3,500 targets in Lebanon.
This conflict is nothing new, as it continues to lead to carnage and civilian displacement. The New York Times reports 1,500 deaths in Lebanon and more than a million displaced residents.
Thanks to Israel’s air defense system, many missiles launched at the country have been intercepted, resulting in a much lower death toll.
President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have maintained that the ceasefire deal does not extend to Lebanon. In a television address on Wednesday, the Israeli leader said, “I insisted that the temporary ceasefire with Iran not include Hezbollah, and we continue to pound it forcefully.”
Talks between the U.S. and Iran are scheduled for Saturday, hosted by Pakistan.
What will Saturday’s talks cover?
The U.S. delegation in Pakistan will likely be led by Vice President JD Vance, special envoy Steve Witkoff and White House adviser Jared Kushner.
However, President Trump told the New York Post on Wednesday that Vance will not attend if U.S. intelligence detects a significant threat to his safety.
The U.S. and Iran will negotiate their so-far conflicting multi-point plans. On Iran’s docket are the following items, per their 10-point plan obtained by The New York Times:
- Iran maintains control of the Strait of Hormuz, which is relied on internationally to transport a fifth of the world’s petroleum liquids.
- The U.S. ends the regional war, including attacks on Hezbollah.
- The U.S. withdraws combat forces from all bases and positions in the region.
- The U.S. pays reparation for war damages.
- The U.S. accepts Iran’s nuclear enrichment program.
- The U.S. lifts all primary and secondary sanctions on Iran.
- The UN Security Council and the International Atomic Energy Agency terminates all resolutions against Iran.
Trump has not released his administration’s own plan toward peace, but it will likely require that Iran gives up its nuclear enrichment facilities, limit their defense capabilities and reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
Why the war on Hezbollah?
In the 1980s, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps established Hezbollah as a Lebanese militant group and political party. From its inception, Hezbollah’s central mission has been the destruction of Israel and the “liberation of Jerusalem.”
The last major war between Hezbollah and Israel ended in 2006. However, the pair continued to exchange cross-border strikes for years, and the conflict exploded again following Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
That day, a Saturday, members of Hamas, Palestinian armed groups and Palestinian citizens entered the country by land, air and sea, directly killing more than 1,200 people, injuring 14,970, and taking 252 hostage into Gaza.
On Oct. 8, Hezbollah launched rockets and missiles from Lebanon into Israel.
Those strikes “opened the door for Israel” to escalate attacks, Maha Yahya, the director of the Carnegie Endowment’s Middle East Center, told The New Yorker.
Between October 2023 and March 2024, there were more than 4,400 violent incidents concentrated around Israel’s northeastern border.
Then, in September 2024, the IDF assassinated Hezbollah’s secretary general, the head of the group’s central council and other top commanders.
What has it looked like on the ground?
Last Tuesday, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz announced that homes on the Lebanese border, which have been used as Hezbollah outposts, would be destroyed.
Katz added that Israel would maintain control over the land up to the Litani River, which is about 20 miles north of Israel’s border. In response, Lebanon’s social affairs minister called the move a “land grab.”
On Wednesday, Israel delivered its largest bombardment of the country, targeting more than 100 Hezbollah command centers and military sites within a 10-minute span. The strikes resulted in the deaths of at least 300 people and the injury of at least 1,150 others.
The next day, search and rescue teams combed through decimated apartment buildings in search of dozens of missing people. Meanwhile, the IDF told Lebanese residents in several areas of Beirut to evacuate.
An IDF spokesman, Avichay Adraee, told residents that Israel “does not intend to harm you … therefore, out of concern for your safety, you must evacuate immediately.”
The struggle to disarm Hezbollah
Lebanon has promised several times to disarm Hezbollah. In 2024, when agreeing to a ceasefire with Israel, they committed to disarm Hezbollah, and again in 2025, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun pledged to seize their weapons.
However, following through on this task is no small feat.
Hezbollah almost completely controls Shiite representation in parliament and can influence decisions about its weapons. In 2024, the Center for Strategic and International Studies estimated that the political group had a stockpile of 120,000 to 200,000 short-range ballistic missiles, and short- and long-range unguided rockets.
With their vast weapons stockpile, Hezbollah has at times had a stronger military presence than the Lebanese government in some areas.
Over the past two decades, the United Nations Security Council has asked Hezbollah repeatedly to disarm. Notably, with Resolution 1701 from 2006, the U.N. asked Lebanon to establish “an area free of armed personnel, assets and weapons other than those of the Government of Lebanon,” in the southern area of the country.
Hezbollah has not complied, and Lebanon has not enforced the U.N.’s resolution.
Yahya addressed this struggle in her interview with The New Yorker. She said she believes Lebanon is more likely now than it has been before to “expel any IRGC (Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps) that are found in the country.”
“That’s a seismic shift in the mentality,” she said. “These are things we never thought we would see happen in a country like Lebanon, because going after Hezbollah, an armed group that represents at least part of the Shia community, could trigger civil strife.”
She then referenced a decision among Lebanon’s Council of Ministers to consider Hezbollah’s military activities illegal. “Three of the five Shia ministers did not protest this decision,” Yahya said.