Hezbollah Military Activities

Hezbollah’s military activities have included attacks on Israeli military forces and civilians, combat against other Lebanese factions, intervention on behalf of Syria’s government, and assistance to allied armed groups elsewhere in the region.[2][3] Iran has supplied funding, training, weapons, explosives, and other assistance, while Syria has served as a route for weapons deliveries and a theater of Hezbollah combat operations.[3][5] The organization has maintained an armed force separate from the Lebanese Armed Forces, retaining its weapons after both the end of Lebanon’s civil war and Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000.[3][6]

The development of this force involved more than an increase in weapons numbers: Hezbollah moved from roadside bombs, ambushes, and attacks on outposts toward sustained rocket bombardments, anti-tank warfare, unmanned-aircraft operations, and fighting in larger formations.[1][7] Its campaigns have combined operations against military positions with attacks reaching Israeli towns and cities, making civilian protection and displacement major features of the conflict.[8][9] International arrangements have repeatedly sought to replace Hezbollah’s military presence in southern Lebanon with Lebanese state authority and UN peacekeepers, without securing its complete disarmament.[4][6]

Hezbollah emerged in the early 1980s amid Lebanon’s civil war and disagreement among Lebanese Shiʿi leaders over Israel’s 1982 invasion and occupation of southern Lebanon.[2] Leaders favoring a more militant response broke from Amal and established Islamic Amal; direct support from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards helped develop the groups that subsequently came under the Hezbollah name.[2] Iranian money and training supported expansion from the Bekaa Valley into Beirut’s southern suburbs and southern Lebanon.[2] Its founders sought both to drive Israel from Lebanon and to establish an Islamic republic modeled on their religious-political aspirations.[6]

The organization’s antecedents included activity taking shape in Baalbek in 1978, before its establishment with Revolutionary Guards support in 1982.[10] During the 1980s, Hezbollah fought in Lebanon’s civil war, including clashes with Amal, while developing increasingly sophisticated attacks against Israel.[6] On October 23, 1983, Hezbollah bombed the U.S. Marine Corps barracks in Beirut, killing 241 American military personnel: 220 Marines, 18 sailors, and three soldiers.[11]

From 1985, Hezbollah attacked Israeli forces and convoys in southern Lebanon with suicide attacks and explosives and targeted South Lebanon Army outposts.[1] Its campaign sought to inflict casualties and encourage an Israeli withdrawal, although its limited capabilities meant that it played a smaller role than Amal in attacks on the Israel Defense Forces between 1985 and 1990.[1] After Israel withdrew to a southern Lebanese security zone in 1985, attacks on Israeli forces there became a major focus, alongside Katyusha rocket fire against northern Israeli towns.[10]

The end of Lebanon’s civil war in 1990 did not bring Hezbollah’s disarmament; it remained one of the few militia organizations not disarmed and continued its guerrilla campaign against Israeli forces.[6] Throughout the 1990s, its operations included attacks on Israeli and South Lebanon Army positions, convoy ambushes, and rocket fire.[1] Hezbollah presented Katyusha attacks on Israel as responses to Israeli actions causing destruction or civilian casualties in Lebanon.[1] Israel conducted Operation Accountability in 1993 and Operation Grapes of Wrath in 1996, but Hezbollah continued attacking Israeli forces in southern Lebanon and communities in northern Israel.[10]

Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon in May 2000, ending the deployment against which Hezbollah had directed much of its military campaign.[10] Hezbollah nevertheless retained its arms and cited Israel’s continued presence in the Shebaa Farms and other disputed border areas as justification for maintaining an independent armed force and continuing operations.[3] Its subsequent border activities included attacks on military outposts and attempts to shoot down Israeli aircraft, supported by outposts, training bases, and firing positions in the border region.[10]

Reduced fighting after the withdrawal gave Hezbollah an opportunity to construct a more extensive military system with Iranian and Syrian assistance.[12] This included offensive weapons, defensive positions and strongholds in southern Lebanon and Nabatieh, and dispersed weapons stores intended to sustain prolonged fighting.[12] A historical estimate placed its rocket stock at more than 20,000 weapons of different ranges during this buildup, illustrating the scale of its development toward a force with quasi-state military capabilities.[12]

Its rocket force included shorter-range Katyusha or Grad systems and longer-range Fajr-3 and Fajr-5 rockets, with reported Iranian and Syrian support.[10] Contemporary assessments also credited it with longer-range Zelzal or Nezaat rockets, while Iranian Revolutionary Guards and other Iranian military and intelligence personnel trained its forces.[10] These weapons supplemented the guns, roadside bombs, and anti-tank guided missiles that had featured in its development from a smaller guerrilla organization.[7]

At approximately 9 a.m. on July 12, 2006, Hezbollah attacked two Israeli patrol vehicles, killing three soldiers, wounding three, and abducting Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev.[12] Hezbollah simultaneously fired Katyusha rockets toward Israeli border towns, and five additional Israeli soldiers were killed during efforts to retrieve the abducted soldiers.[10] The operation sought to pressure Israel into releasing Lebanese prisoners, and the Israeli cabinet decided that night to begin the campaign that became the Second Lebanon War.[6][12]

Rocket fire initially helped divert Israeli forces while Hezbollah fighters crossed the border.[13] Israel responded with airstrikes against Hezbollah headquarters, weapons stocks, positions, and launchers, as well as strategic targets; a ground offensive began on July 22.[13] On the night of July 12, Israeli aircraft destroyed most of Hezbollah’s Iranian-made Zelzal long-range rockets within 39 minutes, but the broader air campaign did not halt bombardment of northern Israel.[13]

During the 34-day war, Hezbollah fired more than 4,000 Katyusha rockets and other missiles into northern Israel and conducted cross-border raids on villages and military installations.[8] Northern population centers subjected to Katyusha fire included Kiryat Shemona, Haifa, and Safed; the attacks exceeded 100 rockets per day and displaced nearly 400,000 Israelis from their homes.[9] A separate contemporary tally put Katyusha fire at approximately 3,970 rockets over the war.[14] Hezbollah also launched weaponized drones and struck an Israeli naval vessel with an anti-ship missile.[8]

Israel’s response combined airstrikes, artillery attacks, and a ground incursion intended to push Hezbollah north of the Litani River.[8] The war ended on August 14 after Israel, Hezbollah, and the Lebanese government accepted the conditions of UN Security Council Resolution 1701.[13] It caused extensive destruction and displacement in southern Lebanon, including approximately one million Lebanese displaced, but did not result in Hezbollah’s disarmament.[6][13] Nasrallah subsequently declared victory.[14] Other accounts characterized the outcome as a standstill or an ambiguous result without a clear victor.[6][10]

UN Security Council Resolution 1701, adopted unanimously on August 11, 2006, called for a full cessation of hostilities, including an immediate end to Hezbollah attacks.[9] It provided for the Lebanese government and UNIFIL to deploy throughout southern Lebanon and authorized a maximum UNIFIL strength of 15,000 troops.[15] Its principles included an area between the Blue Line and the Litani River free of armed personnel, weapons, and military assets other than those of the Lebanese government and UNIFIL, alongside the disarmament of armed groups in Lebanon.[15]

Hezbollah continued operating in the area, began rearming, and at times subsequently fought Israeli forces there, rather than complying with the resolution’s requirements.[4] After 2006, its border deployment shifted from an overt military presence toward infrastructure and activity under civilian cover, including patrols by groups in civilian clothing near and sometimes across the Blue Line.[16] Military infrastructure expanded, and an assessment of the postwar buildup placed the increase in rocket and missile holdings at more than ten-fold.[16]

Hezbollah and Iran also undertook an intensive reconstruction and expansion effort involving military formations and a larger, more diverse range of rockets and missiles.[1] A 2023 estimate placed its arsenal at approximately 150,000 rockets and missiles, accompanied by thousands of drones and limited air-defense capabilities.[1] Separate estimates before the 2024 escalation suggested 50,000 or more fighters, including the elite Radwan Force, and between 120,000 and 200,000 rockets and missiles.[3]

The organization’s weapons also affected Lebanon’s internal balance of power.[2] In 2008, Hezbollah used force against other Lebanese factions after government forces attempted to assert greater security control, intensifying the dispute over national defense and state security authority.[2] Beyond Lebanon and Syria, Hezbollah helped train and arm allied groups, including Yemen’s Houthis; its commanders reportedly assisted the Houthi campaign against international shipping in the Red Sea.[3]

Hezbollah’s intervention in Syria developed from assistance and training into an overt combat role supporting President Bashar al-Assad.[2] Fighters were reported in Syria by late 2012, and Nasrallah publicly confirmed their participation in May 2013, pledging to continue until Syrian rebels were defeated.[6] Hezbollah presented the intervention as defending Lebanon against Sunni extremist groups while its operations helped sustain the Syrian government.[2]

In June 2013, Hezbollah forces helped Syrian government troops recapture Qusayr.[2] Operational reporting described Hezbollah’s involvement there as extending beyond frontline combat to planning and the handling of key weapons systems, with deployments subsequently extending to Damascus, Homs, and the Syrian-Lebanese border.[17] Other activities included fighting in the Qalamoun Mountains, helping clear rebel-held towns along the Damascus–Homs highway to secure government supply lines, and monitoring and targeting rebel positions near Lebanon.[2]

Estimates of the deployed force changed over time: regional security officials placed it at 2,000–4,000 fighters in a 2013 account, while a senior Israeli military official estimated 4,000–5,000 in March 2014.[17][2] A 2016 estimate put the deployment at 7,000 fighters and Hezbollah deaths in Syria at approximately 1,400.[18] Senior military commander Mustafa Badreddine was killed in combat in Syria in 2016.[6]

The intervention gave Hezbollah experience in larger formations and combined operations, contributing to the development of its military capabilities.[1] It also imposed losses and damaged the organization’s standing among some Lebanese and Arab publics.[18] Syria thus became both a theater of regional intervention and a setting in which Hezbollah developed skills beyond those acquired in its earlier guerrilla war in southern Lebanon.[1][2]

Hezbollah began firing into northern Israel on October 8, 2023, the day after the Hamas-led attack on Israel, declaring that it was acting in support of Hamas.[3] Its opening fire targeted an Israeli position at Mount Dov, approximately 25 hours after the attack in southern Israel.[19] Hezbollah pledged to continue attacks until fighting in Gaza ended, and exchanges across the border displaced tens of thousands of people on both sides.[3][20]

The campaign used rockets, missiles, anti-tank guided missiles, artillery, mortars, unmanned aerial vehicles, suicide drones, and surface-to-air missiles against Israeli military and civilian targets.[5] Its geographical range, launch intensity, and weapons mix expanded over time.[5] Weapons were assessed as predominantly Iranian or Russian in manufacture, with supplies also smuggled through Syria or produced by Hezbollah itself.[5]

After sustained rocket, anti-tank missile, mortar, and machine-gun fire and attempted infiltrations, Israel announced on October 16 the evacuation of 28 communities within two kilometers of the border.[19] A July 2024 Israeli government assessment put displacement at more than 60,000 Israeli civilians and counted 2,133 attacks between October 8, 2023, and June 17, 2024.[21] Another published count recorded 2,295 attacks through the end of June, including anti-tank missile and drone attacks.[22]

Unmanned aircraft became increasingly prominent after three Hezbollah explosive drones crossed into Israel on November 10, 2023.[19] A January 6, 2024 rocket barrage targeted the Miron air-traffic-control base, and on May 15 a drone struck the Tal Shamayim observation-balloon site near Golani Junction, approximately 32 kilometers from the border.[19] Monthly tracking counted 325 Hezbollah attacks in May, including 95 anti-tank-fire incidents and 85 drone incursions, compared with 50 and 42 respectively in April.[19]

On June 5, a drone attack in Hurfeish killed an Israeli reservist and wounded 11 people; on June 12, more than 160 rockets were fired into the Galilee after the killing of senior commander Taleb Sami Abdullah.[19] A June 30 drone strike in the northern Golan Heights wounded 18 Israeli soldiers.[22] In July, an attack killed 12 Druze children in the northern Golan Heights; assessments largely blamed Hezbollah, which denied responsibility.[20] Israel killed senior Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut on July 30, and the sides subsequently engaged in a major exchange of fire.[4][20]

On August 25, Israel launched a preemptive strike after identifying preparations for a Hezbollah attack.[23] Hezbollah said its drones crossed the border and its operation was complete, while an Israeli military estimate credited the strike with preventing approximately 6,000 rocket and UAV launches.[23] These events preceded a much broader escalation in September and October, when Israel targeted Hezbollah’s leadership and military infrastructure and began ground operations in southern Lebanon.[3]

Thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies belonging to Hezbollah members exploded in September 2024, killing dozens and injuring thousands.[19] Israel then intensified airstrikes against leadership and military targets.[4] Hezbollah’s attacks also reached farther into Israel: on September 22, it fired 115 rockets toward the Jezreel Valley, the Krayot, and the Sea of Galilee.[19] On September 25, it launched a missile toward central Israel for the first time, aimed at the Tel Aviv area; Israel intercepted it, and Hezbollah said its target was Mossad headquarters.[6][19]

An Israeli airstrike in Beirut killed Nasrallah and other senior figures on September 27.[20] Israel also killed potential successor Hashem Safieddine in an October 4 strike.[4] Israeli ground forces entered southern Lebanon on October 1, encountering Hezbollah fighters; eight Israeli soldiers were killed and more than 30 wounded in the first 24 hours.[6] Hezbollah continued rocket and drone attacks during October and November, including an October 13 drone strike on a Golani Brigade training base near Binyamina that killed four soldiers and wounded others.[19] A drone struck Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s home in Caesarea on October 19, causing damage.[19]

Hezbollah’s own first-anniversary tally claimed 3,194 attacks between October 8, 2023, and October 8, 2024.[5] It classified 1,040 as attacks on military forces, 964 as attacks on military positions and equipment, and 570 as attacks on civilian communities it called “settlements.”[5] Claimed weapon-use categories included 1,305 rocket launches, 760 anti-tank missile launches, 589 artillery-shell launches, and 221 UAV launches; the rocket category counted launches rather than individual rockets.[5]

A second Hezbollah chart claimed 1,666 attacks between September 17 and November 27, averaging 23 per day.[5] Its target categories included 211 IDF bases, 147 border posts, 540 Israeli communities, 17 military factories and defense companies, and 10 airports.[5] It also claimed 1,285 rocket and missile launches, 166 UAV strikes, and 86 guided-missile strikes.[5] Israel’s defense minister estimated in October that approximately 20% of Hezbollah’s prewar rocket and missile arsenal remained.[3]

A U.S.- and French-brokered ceasefire took effect on November 27, 2024.[3] Lebanon undertook to prevent Hezbollah and other armed groups from attacking Israel, while Israel was to halt offensive operations in Lebanon and withdraw within 60 days.[3][24] Lebanon sought to deploy 10,000 soldiers in the south, dismantle unauthorized military positions and arms-production facilities, and confiscate unauthorized weapons.[3][24] The Israeli and Lebanese governments formally accepted the understanding, while Hezbollah reportedly assented informally.[3]

Between the November 2024 ceasefire and March 2026, Israel retained some positions across the Lebanese border and conducted airstrikes, while Hezbollah generally refrained from breaching Israel’s border but retained military capabilities and refused demands to disarm.[25] In April 2025, a source close to Hezbollah claimed that approximately 190 of 265 identified military positions south of the Litani had been handed to the Lebanese army.[26] Implementation nevertheless remained accompanied by mutual accusations of violations.[26]

Hezbollah reopened fire on March 2, 2026, after U.S.-Israeli operations against Iran began on February 28.[25][27] It framed its missile and drone attacks as a response to the killing of Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei.[27] Early in the renewed campaign, Hezbollah launched dozens to hundreds of missiles and UAVs daily, mainly toward northern Israeli communities, with some attacks reaching farther south, and deployed Radwan forces against Israeli troops in southern Lebanon.[27]

Estimates on the eve of this fighting placed Hezbollah’s holdings at approximately 20,000–25,000 rockets and missiles, mostly short-range, and 1,000–2,000 UAVs.[27] These estimates included weapons surviving the earlier conflict and capabilities rebuilt after November 2024 with Iranian financial and military assistance.[27] Fiber-optic-controlled Hezbollah drones posed challenges for Israeli troops in southern Lebanon because they were difficult to intercept and detect.[28] Hezbollah also used drones against Israeli areas near the border.[29]

Lebanon’s government formally banned Hezbollah’s military activities, an unprecedented step whose immediate implementation was limited.[27] Israeli ground operations expanded into a buffer zone covering approximately 5% of Lebanon’s territory; reported consequences in Lebanon included more than one million displaced people and over 4,300 deaths.[25] An April pause was initially announced for ten days and later nominally extended until late June, but Hezbollah fire and Israeli operations continued.[29]

In June, the United States, Israel, and Lebanon announced a ceasefire contingent on Hezbollah ending fire and evacuating operatives from the South Litani Sector.[29] A June 26 trilateral framework linked phased Israeli redeployments to verified disarmament of armed groups.[29] Hezbollah’s leader rejected the framework as a “surrender of [Lebanon’s] sovereignty” and vowed to resist Israel.[25] A November account described the June agreement as ending the conflict while noting continued sporadic fighting and disagreement over disarmament and Israeli withdrawal.[30]

Israel attributed explosive-drone incidents at Ali al Taher Ridge to Hezbollah on July 29 and August 15; the latter seriously wounded three Israeli troops and was followed by strikes killing Radwan and Badr commanders.[28] Hezbollah did not claim the August attack and neither claimed nor denied the July incident.[28] In October, Lebanese forces intercepted a shipment containing nearly 800 kilograms of explosives reportedly destined for Hezbollah.[28] Hezbollah parliamentarian Hassan Fadlallah acknowledged the organization’s ownership on October 15.[31]

By November, reporting described Hezbollah rebuilding defensive positions north of the Litani and restoring its presence through money, weapons, and local organizations.[31] Hezbollah-linked civilian bodies, including the Islamic Health Organization and Wa Ta’awano association, returned to some southern villages and appeared publicly alongside Lebanese army personnel.[32] Israeli assessments described efforts to restore capabilities, return operatives, and collect information about Israeli forces.[32] On November 3, the IDF announced that a brigade combat team’s eight-month deployment in the Wadi Saluki, Qantara, and Litani areas had killed approximately 400 Hezbollah fighters, destroyed around 3,500 military infrastructure sites, and recovered hundreds of weapons.[33]

Hezbollah’s evolution joined guerrilla methods to capabilities normally associated with larger military organizations: dispersed weapons storage, prepared defensive positions, sustained rocket fire, anti-ship missiles, and drones.[12][8] Iranian support underpinned successive cycles of expansion and reconstruction, while intervention in Syria gave its forces experience in larger formations and combined operations.[1][3]

For Israel, Hezbollah’s military activity has involved both battlefield threats and repeated attacks on the civilian rear, producing large-scale evacuations in 2006 and again after October 2023.[9][21] For Lebanon, its retention of arms has linked external conflict to the authority of the national government, the role of the Lebanese Armed Forces, and the implementation of international security arrangements.[2][4] The November 2024 ceasefire and June 2026 framework both sought to connect security on the border with the removal of unauthorized armed infrastructure and stronger Lebanese state control.[24][29]

Hezbollah’s justification for retaining arms after 2000 rested partly on Shebaa Farms, while the UN position described in contemporary reporting treated Israel’s withdrawal as complete and the farms as Syrian territory captured with the Golan Heights.[10] Its autonomy from Iran is also debated, as are the means by which Lebanon could compel disarmament without risking civil conflict.[3][25] Interpretations of the 1990s campaigns as attempts to alter reciprocal deterrence rules are analytical judgments rather than direct measures of either side’s intentions.[1]

Arsenal estimates, fighter totals, Hezbollah’s self-published attack charts, and belligerents’ operational claims are not independently verified inventories or comprehensive accounts.[3][5] Published 2006 fatality totals also differ: one account gives 121 Israeli soldiers and 44 civilians killed, while Israel’s defense archive lists 121 soldiers and 68 civilians; Lebanese totals and the civilian-combatant breakdown likewise vary.[34][35] These figures use differing scopes and categories and should not be treated as interchangeable.[34][35]