The prospect of a full-scale war between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia terrifies people on both sides of the border, but some see it as an inevitable fallout from Israel’s ongoing war against Hamas in Gaza.
Such a war could be the most destructive either side has ever experienced. Israel and Hezbollah each have lessons from their last war, in 2006, a monthlong conflict that ended in a draw.
They’ve also had four months to prepare for another war, even as the United States tries to prevent a widening of the conflict. Here’s a look at each side’s preparedness, how war might unfold and what’s being done to prevent it.
The 2006 war, six years after Israeli forces withdrew from south Lebanon, erupted after Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers and killed several others in a cross-border raid.
Israel launched a full-scale air and ground offensive and imposed a blockade that aimed to free the hostages and destroy Hezbollah’s military capabilities — a mission that ultimately failed.
Israeli bombing leveled large swaths of south Lebanon and Beirut’s southern suburbs. Hezbollah fired thousands of unguided rockets into northern Israel communities.
The conflict killed some 1,200 Lebanese, mostly civilians, and 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers. A United Nations resolution ending the war called for withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon and a demilitarized zone on Lebanon’s side of the border.
Despite the deployment of U.N. peacekeepers, Hezbollah continues to operate in the border area, while Lebanon says Israel regularly violates its airspace and continues to occupy pockets of Lebanese land.
An Israel-Hezbollah war “would be a total disaster,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned last month, amid a flurry of shuttle diplomacy by the U.S. and Europe.
Iran-backed Hezbollah seemed caught off-guard by Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, a regional ally. Since then, Hezbollah and Israel have exchanged daily cross-border strikes, escalating gradually. Israel also carried out targeted killings of Hezbollah and Hamas figures in Lebanon.
