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Israel and Hezbollah, the armed Shia movement that dominates southern Lebanon, have been at war on and off since 1982. Israel killed most of Hezbollah's leadership in 2024, and in March 2026 invaded southern Lebanon again when Hezbollah joined Iran's war. The Lebanese state is caught between them: it wants Hezbollah disarmed and Israel off its land, and has the power to do neither.
The wider confrontation, its history and each side's full account: Israel in regional confrontation.
In September 2026 Israel and Hezbollah exchanged prisoners while clashes continued in southern Lebanon. The Israeli army seized the Ali al-Taher ridge from Hezbollah, and Israel destroyed a Hezbollah tunnel network in South Lebanon. Lebanon's president ruled out new talks with Israel as a meeting in Rome was delayed, then sought a security deal with Israel.
Hezbollah's weapons. Israel demands that Hezbollah be disarmed and kept away from the border. The Lebanese government has said only the state may bear arms. Hezbollah says it will not disarm while Israel occupies Lebanese ground and bombs at will, and the army will not fight it.
Israel's presence. Israeli forces hold positions inside Lebanon and strike across the country. Israel says they leave when the threat does. Lebanon says their presence is the threat and the reason Hezbollah keeps its support.
Each condition waits on the other, and the state that would have to enforce both is the weakest of the three.
Hezbollah began firing on northern Israel the day after 7 October and emptied its towns for a year. It is an Iranian division on Israel's border, armed with tens of thousands of rockets, and it joined Iran's war in 2026. Lebanon promised in 2006 and again in 2024 to keep it from the border and did not. Israel will do itself what Lebanon cannot.
Hezbollah exists because Israel invaded Lebanon and occupied the south for eighteen years, and it is the only force that ever made Israel leave Arab land without a treaty. Israel has broken every ceasefire, flies over Lebanon daily and kills whom it likes. A Lebanon without the resistance is a Lebanon Israel can walk into, as it just has.
Israel's leaves out eighteen years of occupation that created its enemy, the Lebanese civilians killed in each campaign, and that it kept striking through every truce.
Hezbollah's leaves out that it answers to Tehran, that it turned its guns on fellow Lebanese in 2008, that it fought for Assad in Syria, and that most Lebanese outside its community want it disarmed.
The Lebanese state's leaves out decades in which its politicians shared power and spoils with Hezbollah and looked away from its arsenal.
Many Lebanons: Shia villagers who lost their homes, others who blame Hezbollah for the war.
Names and terms the sides do not share. This page keeps them out of its own voice.
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Lebanon did not choose this war; Hezbollah took it there on Iran's behalf. The country is bankrupt and cannot survive another ruined south. The state must hold the only weapons, and Israel's bombing and occupation make that harder, not easier, by proving Hezbollah's argument for it.
