The 2006 Lebanon War was a 34-day armed conflict in Lebanon, fought between Hezbollah and Israel. The war 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. It marked the third Israeli invasion into Lebanon since 1978. After Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000, Hezbollah aimed for the release of Lebanese citizens held in Israeli prisons. On 12 July 2006, Hezbollah ambushed Israeli soldiers on the border, killing three and capturing two; a further five were killed during a failed Israeli rescue attempt. Hezbollah demanded an exchange of prisoners with Israel. Israel launched airstrikes and artillery fire on targets in Lebanon, attacking both Hezbollah military targets and Lebanese civilian infrastructure, including Beirut's Rafic Hariri International Airport. Israel launched a ground invasion of Southern Lebanon and imposed an air-and-naval blockade on the country. Hezbollah then launched more rockets into northern Israel and engaged the IDF in guerrilla warfare from hardened positions. According to Israeli sources, Hezbollah fired close to 4,000 rockets and missiles at Israel from their arsenal of around 15,000 held before the war. On 11 August 2006, the United Nations Security Council unanimously approved United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 (UNSCR 1701) in an effort to end the hostilities, which called for disarmament of Hezbollah, Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, and for the deployment of the Lebanese Armed Forces and an enlarged United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) in the south. The Lebanese Army began deploying in Southern Lebanon on 17 August and the blockade was lifted on 8 September. On 1 October, most Israeli troops withdrew from Lebanon, although the last of the troops continued to occupy the border-straddling village of Ghajar. Both Hezbollah and the Israeli government claimed victory, while the Winograd Commission deemed the war a missed opportunity for Israel as it did not lead to disarmament of Hezbollah. The conflict is believed to have killed between 1,191 and 1,300 Lebanese people, and 165 Israelis. It severely damaged Lebanese civil infrastructure, and displaced approximately one million Lebanese and 300,000–500,000 Israelis. The remains of the two captured soldiers, whose fates were unknown, were returned to Israel on 16 July 2008 as part of a prisoner exchange.
== Other names == The war is known in Lebanon as the July War (Arabic: حرب تموز, Ḥarb Tammūz) and in Israel as the Second Lebanon War (Hebrew: מלחמת לבנון השנייה, Milhemet Levanon HaShniya). The war is also known as the Israel–Hezbollah War of 2006.
Background
Cross-border attacks from southern Lebanon into Israel by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) dated as far back as 1968, following the 1967 Six-Day War; the area became a significant base for attacks following the arrival of the PLO leadership and its Fatah brigade following their 1971 expulsion from Jordan. Starting about this time, increasing demographic tensions related to the Lebanese National Pact, which had divided governmental powers among religious groups throughout the country 30 years previously, began running high and led in part to the Lebanese Civil War (1975–1990). During the 1978 Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon, Israel failed to stem the Palestinian attacks. Israel invaded Lebanon again in 1982 and forcibly expelled the PLO. Israel withdrew to a borderland buffer zone in southern Lebanon, held with the aid of proxy militants in the South Lebanon Army (SLA). The invasion also led to the conception of a new Shi'a militant group, which in 1985, established itself politically under the name Hezbollah, and declared an armed struggle to end the Israeli occupation of Lebanese territory. When the Lebanese Civil War ended and other warring factions agreed to disarm, both Hezbollah and the SLA refused. Ten years later, Israel withdrew from South Lebanon to the UN-designated and internationally recognized Blue Line border in 2000. The withdrawal also led to the immediate collapse of the SLA, and Hezbollah quickly took control of the area. Later, citing allegations of Lebanese prisoners in Israel and continued Israeli control of the Shebaa farms region, occupied by Israel from Syria in 1967 but considered by Hezbollah to be part of Lebanon, Hezbollah intensified its cross-border attacks, and used the tactic of seizing soldiers from Israel as leverage for a prisoner exchange in 2004. In 2005, Syrian forces withdrew from Lebanon. In August 2006, in an article in The New Yorker, Seymour Hersh claimed that the White House gave the green light for the Israeli government to execute an attack on Hezbollah in Lebanon. Supposedly, communication between the Israeli government and the US government about this came as early as two months in advance of the capture of two Israeli soldiers and the killing of eight others by Hezbollah prior to the conflict in July 2006. According to Conal Urquhart in The Guardian, the Winograd Committee leaked a testimony from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert suggesting that Olmert "had been preparing for such a war at least four months before the official casus belli: the capture by Hezbollah of two Israeli soldiers from a border post on 12 July 2006."
=== Abduction efforts in the year prior to conflict === In June 2005, an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) paratroop unit operating near the Shebaa Farms engaged three Lebanese it identified as Hezbollah special force members, killing one. Videotapes recovered by the paratroopers contained footage of the three recording detailed accounts of the area. Over the following 12 months, Hezbollah made three unsuccessful attempts to abduct Israeli soldiers. On 21 November 2005, a number of Hezbollah special forces attempted to attack an Israeli outpost in Ghajar, a village straddling the border between Lebanon and the Golan Heights. The outpost had been deserted following an intelligence warning, and three of the Hezbollah militants were killed when Israeli sniper David Markovich shot a rocket-propelled grenade they were carrying, causing it to explode. From his sniper position, Markovich shot and killed a fourth gunman shortly thereafter.
Course of the war
Hezbollah cross-border raid
At around 9 am local time on 12 July 2006, Hezbollah launched diversionary rocket attacks toward Israeli military positions near the coast and near the border village of Zar'it as well as on the Israeli town of Shlomi and other villages. Five civilians were injured. Six Israeli military positions were fired on, and the surveillance cameras knocked out. At the same time, a Hezbollah ground contingent infiltrated the border into Israel through a "dead zone" in the border fence, hiding in an overgrown wadi. They attacked a patrol of two Israeli Humvees patrolling the border near Zar'it, using pre-positioned explosives and anti-tank missiles, killing three soldiers, injuring two, and capturing two soldiers (First Sergeant Ehud Goldwasser and Sergeant First Class Eldad Regev). In response to the Hezbollah feint attacks, the IDF conducted a routine check of its positions and patrols, and found that contact with two jeeps was lost. A rescue force was immediately dispatched to the area, and confirmed that two soldiers were missing after 20 minutes. A Merkava Mk III tank, an armored personnel carrier, and a helicopter were immediately dispatched into Lebanon. The tank hit a large land mine, killing its crew of four. Another soldier was killed and two lightly injured by mortar fire as they attempted to recover the bodies. Hezbollah named the attack "Operation Truthful Promise" after leader Hassan Nasrallah's public pledges over the prior year and a half to seize Israeli soldiers and swap them for four Lebanese held by Israel:
Samir Kuntar (a Lebanese citizen captured during an attack in 1979, accused and later convicted by Israel of murdering civilians and a police officer; Kuntar denied the allegations as fabricated by Israel to malign him); Nasim Nisr (an Israeli-Lebanese citizen whom Israel tried and convicted for spying); Yahya Skaf (a Lebanese citizen whom Hezbollah claims was arrested in Israel; Israel states that he was killed in action); Ali Faratan (another Lebanese citizen whom Hezbollah claimed to be held in Israel, believed to have been shot at sea.). Nasrallah claimed that Israel had broken a previous deal to release these prisoners, and since diplomacy had failed, violence was the only remaining option. Nasrallah declared that "no military operation will result in rescuing these prisoners... The only method, as I indicated, is that of indirect negotiations and a swap [of prisoners]".
=== Israeli response === Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert described the seizure of the soldiers as an "act of war" by the sovereign state of Lebanon, stating that "Lebanon will bear the consequences of its actions" and promising a "very painful and far-reaching response." Israel blamed the Lebanese government for the raid, as it was carried out from Lebanese territory. Hezbollah had two ministers serving in the Lebanese cabinet at that time. In response, Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora denied any knowledge of the raid and stated that he did not condone it. An emergency meeting of the Lebanese government reaffirmed this position. The Israel Defense Forces attacked targets within Lebanon with artillery and airstrikes hours before the Israeli Cabinet met to discuss a response. The targets consisted of bridges and roads in Lebanon, which were hit to prevent Hezbollah from transporting the abductees. An Israeli airstrike also destroyed the runways of Beirut–Rafic Hariri International Airport. Forty-four civilians were killed. The Israeli Air Force also targeted Hezbollah's long-range rocket-and-missile stockpiles, destroying many of them on the ground in the first days of the war. Many of Hezbollah's longer-range rocket launchers were destroyed within the first hours of the Israeli attack. Later that same day (12 July 2006), the Cabinet decided to authorize the Prime Minister, the Defense Minister and their deputies to pursue the plan which they had proposed for action within Lebanon. Prime Minister Olmert officially demanded that the Israel Defense Forces avoid civilian casualties whenever possible. Israel's chief of staff Dan Halutz said, "if the soldiers are not returned, we will turn Lebanon's clock back 20 years" while the head of Israel's Northern Command Udi Adam said, "this affair is between Israel and the state of Lebanon. Where to attack? Once it is inside Lebanon, everything is legitimate—not just southern Lebanon, not just the line of Hezbollah posts." On 12 July 2006, the Israeli Cabinet promised that Israel would "respond aggressively and harshly to those who carried out, and are responsible for, today's action". The Cabinet's communiqué stated, in part, that the "Lebanese Government [was] responsible for the action that originated on its soil." A retired Israeli Army Colonel explained that the rationale behind the attack was to create a rift between the Lebanese population and Hezbollah supporters by exacting a heavy price from the elite in Beirut. On 16 July, the Israeli Cabinet released a communiqué explaining that, although Israel had engaged in military operations within Lebanon, its war was not against the Lebanese government. The communiqué stated: "Israel is not fighting Lebanon but the terrorist element there, led by Nasrallah and his cohorts, who have made Lebanon a hostage and created Syrian- and Iranian-sponsored terrorist enclaves of murder." When asked in August about the proportionality of the response, Prime Minister Olmert stated that the "war started not only by killing eight Israeli soldiers and abducting two but by shooting Katyusha and other rockets on the northern cities of Israel on that same morning. Indiscriminately." He added "no country in Europe would have responded in such a restrained manner as Israel did."
Israeli air and artillery attacks
During the first day of the war the Israeli Air Force, artillery and navy conducted more than 100 attacks mainly against Hezbollah bases in south Lebanon, among them the regional headquarters in Yatar. Five bridges across the Litani and Zahrani rivers were also destroyed, reportedly to prevent Hezbollah from transferring the abducted soldiers to the north. Attacks from land, sea and air continued in the following days. Among the targets hit were the Hezbollah headquarters in the southern suburbs of Beirut as well as the offices and homes of the leadership, the compounds of al-Manar TV station and al-Nour radio station, and the runways and fuel depots of the Rafic Hariri International Airport in Beirut. Also targeted were Hezbollah bases, weapons depots and outposts as well as bridges, roads and petrol stations in south Lebanon. Forty-four civilians were killed throughout the day. It was later reported that the Israel Air Force after midnight, 13 July, attacked and destroyed 59 stationary medium-range Fajr rocket launchers positioned throughout southern Lebanon. Operation Density allegedly only took 34 minutes to carry out but was the result of six years of intelligence gathering and planning. Between half and two-thirds of Hezbollah medium-range rocket capability was estimated by the IDF to have been wiped out. According to Israeli journalists Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff the operation was "Israel's most impressive military action" and a "devastating blow for Hezbollah". In the coming days IAF allegedly also attacked and destroyed a large proportion of Hezbollah's long range Zelzal-2 missiles. "All the long-range rockets have been destroyed," chief of staff Halutz allegedly told the Israeli government, "We've won the war." American officials claimed that the Israelis overstated the effectiveness of the air war against Hezbollah and cited the failure to hit any of the Hezbollah leaders in spite of dropping twenty-three tons of high explosives in a single raid on the Beirut Southern suburbs of Dahiya. The Israeli assessments are "too large," said one US official. Al-Manar TV station only went dark for two minutes after the strike before it was back into the air. The TV station was bombed 15 times during the war but never faltered after the first hiccup. According to military analyst William Arkin there is "little evidence" that the Israeli Air Force even attempted, much less succeeded in, wiping out the medium- and long-range-rocket capability in the first days of the war. He dismissed the whole claim as an "absurdity" and a "tale". Benjamin Lambeth, however, insisted that it was far-fetched to suggest that the "authoritative Israeli leadership pronouncements" were not based on facts. He admitted however that there was "persistent uncertainty" surrounding the "few known facts and figures" concerning the alleged attacks. Anthony Cordesman believed that IAF probably destroyed most medium- and long-range missiles in the first two days of the war but acknowledged that these claims "have never been validated or described in detail." Hezbollah long remained silent on the question of its rockets, but on the sixth anniversary of the war, chairman Hassan Nasrallah asserted that Israel had missed them, claiming that Hezbollah had known about Israeli intelligence gathering and had managed to secretly move its platforms and launchers in advance.
During the war the Israeli Air Force flew 11,897 combat missions, which was more than the number of sorties during the 1973 October War (11,223) and almost double the number during the 1982 Lebanon War (6,052). The Israeli artillery fired 170,000 shells, more than twice the number fired in the 1973 October War. A senior officer in the IDF Armored Corps told Haaretz that he would be surprised if it turned out that even five Hezbollah fighters had been killed by the 170,000 shells fired. The Israeli Navy fired 2,500 shells. The combined effect of the massive air and artillery bombardment on Hezbollah capacity to fire short-range Katyusha rockets on northern Israel was very meager. According to the findings of the post-war military investigations the IDF shelling succeeded only in destroying about 100 out of 12,000 Katyusha launchers. The massive fire led to a severe shortage of ammunition towards the end of the war. Northern command had prepared a list before the war on potential Hezbollah targets, identified by the Israeli intelligence, to be struck in case of renewed hostilities. By the fourth day of the war the IDF ran out of targets, as all the 83 targets on the list had already been hit. A high-ranking IDF officer told reporters off the record that the Israeli chief of staff Dan Halutz had ordered the air force to destroy ten 12-story buildings in the Southern suburbs of Beirut for every rocket that fell on Haifa. The statement was denied by the IDF spokesperson. Large parts of the Lebanese civilian infrastructure, however, were destroyed, including 640 kilometres (400 miles) of roads, 73 bridges, and 31 other targets such as Beirut's Rafic Hariri International Airport, ports, water and sewage treatment plants, electrical facilities, 25 fuel stations, 900 commercial structures, up to 350 schools and two hospitals, and 15,000 homes. Some 130,000 more homes were damaged.
Hezbollah rocket attacks
On 16 July, eight employees of the Israel Railways were killed by direct rocket hits on the Haifa train depot. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah defended the attacks, saying that Hezbollah initially had aimed its rockets on "military sites only". But since Israel, he said, had systematically bombed civilian targets he felt that Hezbollah had no choice but to answer in kind and target Israeli cities. The attack on the Haifa depot was not the first civilian target to be hit by Hezbollah. Civilians in the border communities were hurt in the initial cover fire on IDF positions for the cross-border raid. Two Israeli civilians were killed in an attack near the air force base at Mount Meron on 14 July. Since Hezbollah rockets were not very accurate it is unclear whether civilians were intentionally targeted in these attacks. After the attack on Haifa, however, Hezbollah made no attempt to cover this fact. According to a Human Rights Watch study civilian Israeli targets were mentioned four times as often in official Hezbollah war time communiques as was military targets. Hezbollah TV station al-Manar warned both in Arabic and Hebrew specific Israeli communities for future rocket attacks. Similarly Hezbollah sent text messages to warn Israeli residents to evacuate their homes to avoid being targeted by rocket attacks. Israel published an alleged range card for upgraded Grad rocket launcher placed outside the village of Shihin in the Western sector of South Lebanon, issued by the Artillery Department of the elite Nasr Unit of Hezbollah. This list included 91 targets, 56 of whom were civilian and 27 were IDF posts or bases. The military targets had three-digit reference numbers while civilian targets had double-digit numbers. During the war, the Hezbollah rocket force fired between 3,970 and 4,228 rockets at a rate of more than 100 per day, unprecedented since the Iran–Iraq War. About 95% of these were 122 mm (4.8 in) Katyusha artillery rockets, which carried warheads up to 30 kg (66 lb) and had a range of up to 30 km (19 mi). An estimated 23% of these rockets hit cities and built-up areas across northern Israel, while the remainder hit open areas. Cities hit were Haifa, Hadera, Nazareth, Tiberias, Nahariya, Safed, Shaghur, Afula, Kiryat Shmona, Beit She'an, Karmiel, Acre, and Ma'alot-Tarshiha, as well as dozens of towns, kibbutzim, moshavim, and Druze and Israeli-Arab villages. The northern West Bank was also hit. Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz ordered commanders to prepare civil defense plans. One million Israelis had to stay near or in bomb shelters or security rooms, with some 250,000 civilians evacuating the north and relocating to other areas of the country. After the high number of Lebanese civilian casualties in the Qana airstrike, Israel announced a unilateral freeze in its air attacks on Lebanon. Hezbollah then halted its own rocket attacks on Israel. When Israel resumed its air attacks on Lebanon, Hezbollah followed suit and recommenced rocket attacks on Israeli targets. Hezbollah rocket attacks also targeted and succeeded in hitting military targets in Israel. The Israeli military censorship was, however, very strict and explicitly forbade Israel-based media from reporting such incidents. The wartime instruction to media stated that "The Military Censor will not approve reports on missile hits at IDF bases and/or strategic facilities." A notable exception was the rocket attack 6 August, on a company of IDF reservists assembling in the border community of Kfar Giladi, which killed twelve soldiers and wounded several others. Initially Israel did not confirm that the victims were military but eventually relented. On 6 August, two elderly Arab women in Haifa were killed, and an Arab man was mortally wounded, by Hezbollah rocket fire. The day after Hezbollah leader Nasrallah appealed to Haifa's Arab community to leave the city so as not be hurt. After the initial Israeli response, Hezbollah declared an all-out military alert. Hezbollah was estimated to have 13,000 missiles at the beginning of the conflict. Israeli newspaper Haaretz described Hezbollah as a trained, skilled, well-organized, and highly motivated infantry that was equipped with the cream of modern weaponry from the arsenals of Syria, Iran, Russia, and China. Hezbollah's satellite TV station Al-Manar reported that the attacks had included a Fajr-3 and a Ra'ad 1, both liquid-fuel missiles developed by Iran.
Ground war
Hezbollah engaged in guerrilla warfare with IDF ground forces, fighting from well-fortified positions, often in urban areas, and attacking with small, well-armed units. Hezbollah fighters were highly trained, and were equipped with flak jackets, night-vision goggles, communications equipment, and sometimes with Israeli uniforms and equipment. An Israeli soldier who participated in the war said that Hezbollah fighters were "nothing like Hamas or the Palestinians. They are trained and highly qualified. All of us were kind of surprised." During engagements with the IDF, Hezbollah concentrated on inflicting losses on the IDF, believing an unwillingness to absorb steady losses to be Israel's strategic weakness. Hezbollah countered IDF armor through the use of sophisticated Iranian-made anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs). According to Merkava tank program administration, 52 Merkava main battle tanks were damaged (45 of them by different kinds of ATGM), missiles penetrated 22 tanks, but only 5 tanks were destroyed, one of them by an improvised explosive device (IED). The Merkava tanks that were penetrated were predominantly Mark II and Mark III models, but five Mark IVs were also penetrated. All but two of these tanks were rebuilt and returned to service. The IDF declared itself satisfied with the Merkava Mark IV's performance during the war. Hezbollah caused additional casualties using ATGMs to collapse buildings onto Israeli troops sheltering inside. As a result, IDF units did not linger in any one area for an extended period of time. Hezbollah fighters often used tunnels to emerge quickly, fire an anti-tank missile, and then disappear again. On 19 July a force from the Maglan special forces unit seized a fortified Hezbollah dugout adjacent to the Shaked post; two IDF soldiers and five Hezbollah operatives were killed in the battle.
Position of Lebanon
While the Israeli government initially held the Lebanese government responsible for the Hezbollah attacks due to Lebanon's failure to implement United Nations Security Council Resolution 1559 and disarm Hezbollah, Lebanon disavowed the raids, stating that the government of Lebanon did not condone them, and pointing out that Israel had a long history of disregarding UN resolutions. In interviews, Lebanese President Emile Lahoud criticized Israel's attacks and was supportive of Hezbollah, noting Hezbollah's role in ending Israel's previous occupation of southern Lebanon. On 12 July 2006, PBS interviewed the Lebanese ambassador Farid Abboud to the United States and his Israeli counterpart. The interview discussed Hezbollah's connection to the Lebanese government. Israel never declared war on Lebanon, and said it only attacked Lebanese governmental institutions which it suspected of being used by Hezbollah. The Lebanese government played a role in shaping the conflict. On 14 July 2006, the office of Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora issued a statement that called on US President George W. Bush to exert all his efforts on Israel to stop its attacks in Lebanon and reach a comprehensive ceasefire. In a televised speech the next day, Siniora called for "an immediate ceasefire backed by the United Nations." A US–French draft resolution that was influenced by the Lebanese Siniora Plan and which contained provisions for Israeli withdrawal, military actions, and mutual prisoner release was rejected by the US and Israel. Many Lebanese accused the US government of stalling the ceasefire resolution and of support of Israel's attacks. In a poll conducted two weeks into the conflict, only 8% of the respondents felt that the US would support Lebanon, while 87% supported Hezbollah's fight against Israel. After the attack on Qana, Siniora snubbed US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice by cancelling a meeting with her and thanked Hezbollah for its "sacrifices for the independence and sovereignty of Lebanon." During the war, the Lebanese Armed Forces did not engage in direct hostilities, but threatened retaliation if IDF troops pushed too far northward into Lebanon. In several instances, Lebanese troops fired anti-aircraft weapons at Israeli aircraft and attempted to disrupt landing operations. During the first days of the war, Lebanese Defense Minister Elias Murr said that "the Lebanese army will resist and defend the country. If there is an invasion of Lebanon, we are waiting for them." However, the Lebanese Army mostly stayed out of the fighting. According to a Time editorial, "to have stood up to the advancing Israeli armored columns would have been suicidal." On 7 August 2006, the seven-point plan was extended to include the deployment of 15,000 Lebanese Army troops to fill the void between an Israeli withdrawal and UNIFIL deployment.
Psychological warfare
During the war, Hezbollah broadcaseted warnings in Hebrew and Arabic to specific Israeli communities regarding upcoming rocket attacks, and also sent text messages to warn Israeli residents to evacuate their homes to avoid being hit by rockets. Similarly, the Israeli Air Force dropped 17,000 leaflets over Lebanon in 47 missions, and sent more than 700,000 computerized voice messages. Many of them contained caricatures of Hassan Nasrallah and Hezbollah leading Lebanon to ruin and making civilians suffer, showing them as puppets of Iran and Syria, and calling on civilians to help remove Hezbollah. Another leaflet addressing Hezbollah fighters told them that they were lied to by their leaders, that they were "sent like sheep to be butchered, lacking military training and without proper combat gear", that they could not hope to face "highly trained soldiers that fight to protect their homeland, their people, and their home", referring to them as "mercenaries" without the support of the Lebanese public, and urging them to run and save their lives. On 26 July, Israel dropped leaflets containing illustrations of nine tombstones with the name of a dead Hezbollah fighter on each one, in response to Nasrallah "deceiving" people on the number of Hezbollah casualties. Another leaflet urged Hezbollah fighters to stop bleeding and fighting for Nasrallah, who sat safe in a bunker, to stop fighting against Lebanese national interests, and to return to their homes and families. On 11 August, Israel dropped leaflets accusing Hezbollah of hiding its "great losses", and containing the names of 90 to 100 Hezbollah fighters killed. Israeli technicians also hacked into Al-Manar and broadcast clips, criticizing Nasrallah, showing the bodies of Hezbollah fighters, footage from Israeli raids and airstrikes, and captured Hezbollah equipment.
Ceasefire
Terms for a ceasefire had been drawn and revised several times over the course of the conflict, yet successful agreement between the two sides took several weeks. Hezbollah maintained the desire for an unconditional ceasefire, while Israel insisted upon a conditional ceasefire, including the return of the two seized soldiers. Lebanon frequently pleaded for the United Nations Security Council to call for an immediate, unconditional ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. John Bolton confirmed that the US and UK, with support from several Arab leaders, delayed the ceasefire process. Outsider efforts to interfere with a ceasefire only ended when it became apparent Hezbollah would not be easily defeated. On 11 August 2006 the United Nations Security Council unanimously approved UN Security Council Resolution 1701, in an effort to end the hostilities. It was accepted by the Lebanese government and Hezbollah on 12 August, and by the Israeli government on 13 August. The ceasefire took effect at 8:00 am (5:00 am GMT) on 14 August. Before the ceasefire, the two Hezbollah members of cabinet said that their militia would not disarm south of the Litani River, according to another senior member of the Lebanese cabinet, while a top Hezbollah official similarly denied any intention of disarming in the south. Israel said it would stop withdrawing from Southern Lebanon if Lebanese troops were not deployed there within a matter of days.
War crimes
Under international humanitarian law, warring parties are obliged to distinguish between combatants and civilians, ensure that attacks on legitimate military targets are proportionate, and guarantee that the military advantage of such attacks outweigh the possible harm done to civilians. Violations of these laws are considered war crimes. Various groups and individuals accused both Israel and Hezbollah of violations of these laws during the conflict, and warned of possible war crimes. These allegations included intentional attacks on civilian populations or infrastructure, disproportionate or indiscriminate attacks, the use of human shields, and the use of prohibited weapons. No formal charges have been filed against either group. Amnesty International called on both Hezbollah and Israel to end attacks on civilian areas during the conflict, and criticized attacks against civilian villages and infrastructure by Israel. They also highlighted IDF use of white phosphorus shells in Lebanon. Human Rights Watch accused both parties of failing to distinguish between civilians and combatants, violating the principle of distinction, and committing war crimes. Peter Bouckaert, a senior emergencies researcher for Human Rights Watch, stated that Hezbollah was "directly targeting civilians ... their aim is to kill Israeli civilians" and that Israel had not taken "the necessary precautions to distinguish between civilian and military targets." They criticized Hezbollah's use of unguided Katyusha rockets, and Israel's use of unreliable cluster bombs – both too close to civilians areas – suggesting that they may have deliberately targeted civilians. UN humanitarian chief Jan Egeland said Israel's response violated international humanitarian law, and criticized Hezbollah for "cowardly blending... among women and children." He also called Israel's use of over 100,000 cluster bombs "immoral". According to Egeland, 90% of such bombs were launched by Israel in the last 3 days of combat, when it was known that a UN resolution was on its way.
Israel said that it tried to avoid civilians, and had distributed leaflets calling on civilian residents to evacuate, but that Hezbollah stored weapons in and fired from civilian areas, making those areas legitimate targets, and used civilians as human shields. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch found cases where Hezbollah did fire rockets from, and store weapons in, populated areas and deploy its forces among the civilian population; however, both say that is not conclusive evidence of the intent to use civilians as human shields. HRW stated that "the IDF struck a large number of private homes of civilian Hezbollah members during the war, as well as various civilian Hezbollah-run institutions such as schools, welfare agencies, banks, shops and political offices." Although Israel maintained that the civilian infrastructure was "hijacked" by Hezbollah and used for military purposes, but Amnesty International identified the destruction of entire civilian neighbourhoods and villages by Israeli forces, attacks on bridges with no apparent strategic value, and attacks on infrastructure indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, and questioned whether the "military advantage anticipated from destroying" civilian infrastructure had been "measured against the likely effect on civilians." They also stated that the Israeli actions suggested a "policy of punishing both the Lebanese government and the civilian population." Al-Jazeera reported at the time: "Foreign journalists based in Lebanon also reported that the Shia militia chose to fight from civilian areas and had on occasion prevented Lebanese civilians from fleeing conflict-hit areas of south Lebanon. Al-Manar, Hezbollah's satellite channel, also showed footage of Hezbollah firing rockets from civilian areas and produced animated graphics showing how Hezbollah fired rockets at Israeli cities from inside villages in southern Lebanon." Images obtained by the Sunday Herald Sun show that "Hezbollah is waging war amid suburbia. The images ... show Hezbollah using high-density residential areas as launch pads for rockets and heavy-calibre weapons. Dressed in civilian clothing so they can quickly disappear, the militants carrying automatic assault rifles and ride in on trucks mounted with cannon." Amnesty International stated, however, that the volume of civilian casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure suggested that Israel was not just trying to target Hezbollah fighters. An AI spokesperson, Kate Gilmore, said that "[t]he pattern, scope and scale of the attacks makes Israel's claim that this was 'collateral damage', simply not credible". "The evidence strongly suggests that the extensive destruction of power and water plants, as well as the transport infrastructure vital for food and other humanitarian relief, was deliberate and an integral part of a military strategy," Gilmore said. On 24 July 2007, Haaretz reported that the official Israeli inquiry into the war "is to include the examination of claims that the IDF committed war crimes during last summer's fighting." A 6 September 2007 Human Rights Watch report found that most of the civilian deaths in Lebanon resulted from "indiscriminate Israeli airstrikes", and found that Israeli aircraft targeted vehicles carrying fleeing civilians. In a statement issued before the report's release, the human rights organization said there was no basis to the Israeli government's claim that civilian casualties resulted from Hezbollah guerrillas using civilians as shields. Kenneth Roth, Human Rights Watch executive director, said there were only "rare" cases of Hezbollah operating in civilian villages. "To the contrary, once the war started, most Hizbollah(sic) military officials and even many political officials left the villages," he said. "Most Hizbollah(sic) military activity was conducted from prepared positions outside Lebanese villages in the hills and valleys around." Roth also noted that "Hezbollah fighters often didn't carry their weapons in the open or regularly wear military uniforms, which made them a hard target to identify. But this doesn't justify the IDF's failure to distinguish between civilians and combatants, and if in doubt to treat a person as a civilian, as the laws of war require." On its final report, issued on 30 January 2008, the Israeli government's Winograd Commission concluded that the Israel Defense Forces did not commit violations or war crimes, as alleged by the Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and other NGOs. The Commission claimed that the evidence shows that the Israel Defense Forces did not target civilians, in contrast to Hezbollah and to denunciations by NGOs, and explained that terms like "war crimes" are without basis. This report also acknowledged that Israel used cluster bombs illegally, stating that "Israel must consider whether it wants to continue using cluster bombs in the future, because its current manner of employing them does not conform to international law."
Cluster and phosphorus munitions
Both sides used cluster bombs during the conflict. Israel fired 4.6 million submunitions into dozens of towns and villages in southern Lebanon in 962 separate strikes, around 90% within the final 72 hours of the war, when the conflict already had been largely resolved by UN Security Council Resolution 1701. Entire towns were covered in cluster bombs. The unguided rockets were fired from mobile rocket launching platforms. To compensate for the inaccuracy of the rockets, the areas were flooded with munitions. Israel claimed to have warned civilians prior to a strike, and that firing was limited to open areas or military targets inside urban areas. Israel used advanced cluster munitions produced by Israel Military Industries, and large numbers of older cluster bombs, some produced in the 1970s, purchased from aging American stockpiles. These were fired by multiple rocket launchers, 155 mm artillery guns, and dropped by aircraft. As many as 1 million submunitions failed to explode on impact, lingering as land mines that killed or maimed almost 200 people since the war ended. As of 2011, munitions were still causing casualties and being cleared by volunteers. Hezbollah fired 4,407 submunitions into civilian-populated areas of northern Israel in 113 separate strikes, using Chinese made Type-81 122 mm rockets, and Type-90 submunitions. These attacks killed one civilian and wounded twelve. Human Rights Watch "found that the IDF's use of cluster munitions was both indiscriminate and disproportionate, in violation of international humanitarian law, and in some locations possibly a war crime" because "the vast majority [were dropped] over the final three days when Israel knew a settlement was imminent." After the ceasefire, parts of southern Lebanon remained uninhabitable due to Israeli unexploded cluster bomblets. Also phosphorus shells were used by the IDF to attack civilian areas in Lebanon. The shells were originally designed to generate a smoke screen in a battlefield situation, but white phosphorus is also especially harmful to humans because its burning will continue inside the flesh. The shelling was investigated as a violation of international law.
Casualties and damage
Total Lebanese casualties
The Lebanese civilian death toll is difficult to pinpoint as most published figures, including those released by the Lebanese government, do not distinguish between civilians and Hezbollah combatants. In addition, Hezbollah fighters can be difficult to identify as many do not wear military uniforms. However, it has been widely reported that the majority of the Lebanese killed were civilians, and UNICEF estimated that 30% of Lebanese killed were children under the age of 13. The Lebanese top police office and the Lebanon Ministry of Health, citing hospitals, death certificates, local authorities, and eyewitnesses, put the death toll at 1,123—37 soldiers and police officers, 894 identified victims, and 192 unidentified ones. The Lebanon Higher Relief Council (HRC) put the Lebanese death toll at 1,191, citing the health ministry and police, as well as other state agencies. The Associated Press estimated the figure at 1,035. In February 2007, the Los Angeles Times reported that at least 800 Lebanese had died during fighting, and other articles have estimated the figure to be at least 850. Encarta states that "estimates ... varied from about 850 to 1,200" in its entry on Israel, while giving a figure of "more than 1,200" in its entry on Lebanon. The Lebanon Higher Relief Council estimated the number of Lebanese injured to be 4,409, 15% of whom were permanently disabled. The death toll estimates do not include Lebanese killed since the end of fighting by land mines or unexploded Israeli cluster bombs. Between the end of the war and November 2008, approximately 40 people were killed and over 270 injured by cluster bombs.
=== Hezbollah and other militias === During the war Hezbollah kept a firm lid on its casualties. Although it did sometimes announce casualty numbers in specific clashes, the party did not publish a comprehensive estimate for the duration of the war. A tally made by Associated Press counted to 70 dead Hezbollah fighters officially acknowledged by the party during the war. Intelligence analysts Alastair Crooke and Mark Perry reported a few months after the war a total of 184 "Shiite martyr funerals" having been held in Lebanon since the war. They considered this number an indication of Hezbollah fatalities but warned that it could be revised upward in the future. Four months after the end of the war the deputy chairman of the Hezbollah Political Council Mahmoud Qomati for the first time presented Hezbollah's official estimate of its losses. He claimed that 250 fighters had been killed in the war. The NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) specifically studied 94 IDF air, artillery, and ground attacks during the war that claimed the lives of 561 persons. Only 51 of these victims were Hezbollah combatants and about half of them were women or children. HRW said it documented the identities of another 548 fatalities, bringing the total of identified Lebanese deaths in the war to 1109. It argued (as an extrapolation from those 94 attacks) that an estimated 250 of these were Hezbollah combatants and the remaining 860 were civilians. Lebanese officials cited in The Daily Telegraph estimated Hezbollah's losses at 500 killed. A UN official also estimated Hezbollah's losses at 500, though with not all of them being front-line fighters. The Israeli Military Intelligence (AMAN) in November 2006 estimated that some 650 Hezbollah operatives were killed, while over 800 were wounded. Three years after the outbreak of war the Israel Foreign Affairs Ministry published a summary of the war which concluded that "over 600" Hezbollah fighters were killed in the war. IDF Maj.-Gen. (res.) Yaakov Amidror claimed that IDF had identified the names and addresses of 440 members of Hezbollah who were killed in the war. Based on this number he estimated that the total amounted killed in the war to between 500 and 700. According to the Yedioth Ahronoth Encyclopedia of the Second Lebanon War, the main reason for the discrepancy between Lebanese and Israeli estimates of the number of Hezbollah fatalities during the war (300 versus 700, respectively) was that the former included only Hezbollah military while the latter also included civilian members of Hezbollah. The Amal movement, a Shiite militia that fought alongside Hezbollah, suffered 17 dead. Armed elements of the Lebanese Communist Party suffered twelve dead. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command, a Palestinian militia, lost two fighters in an Israeli air raid.
==== Hezbollah commanders ==== Cordesman (2007) wrote that some IDF officers claimed that "significant parts of the key [Hezbollah] leaders and cadres were killed or captured but Israel has given no details of such successes since the war". On 19 July, a suspected bunker in southern Beirut was attacked with 23 tons of bombs. Israeli intelligence leaked that 12 senior Hezbollah members had attended a meeting in the bunker and that among those killed was military chief Imad Mughniya. Chairman Hassan Nasrallah himself was said to have been wounded in the attack. The IDF also claimed to have killed Abu Jaafar, the regional commander of central sector, in a clash in or air strike on Maroun ar-Ras. Sheikh Nabil Qaouk, commander in South Lebanon was reportedly killed in a missile strike on a building in Tyre, where 13 civilians were wounded. All of these supposedly dead Hezbollah leaders later appeared in public seemingly unscathed. By the end of July, IDF claimed that about 40, mostly anonymous, "top-level commanders and officials" had been killed. IDF also named a few Hezbollah commanders who could not identified after the war, such as Jihad Attiya, said to be a logistical coordinator and Nour Shalhoub, a supposed arms transporter. In the beginning of August IDF reported that several "senior Hezbollah operatives" were killed in a commando raid on a building in Tyre. Four years later IDF admitted that the senior Hezbollah figure, who was the target of the raid, was not killed but had escaped. During the war, Hezbollah never commented on these issues or simply offered flat denials. But shortly after the war (27 August), Hezbollah General-Secretary Hassan Nasrallah gave an interview to New TV, In this interview he conceded that between ten and twelve Hezbollah commanders had been killed in the war. None of the first or second levels of the leadership were harmed. But three commanders of the third level were killed; an operations officer in the Bint Jbeil axis, a logistics officer and a third commander involved in the military side of the party. In addition three or four town commanders and four or five village commanders were killed in the war. Nasrallah did not mention any names but the killed commanders were later identified by Hezbollah newspaper Al-Intiqad (and later republished by Hezbollah magazine al-Ahed). The three slain mid-level leaders were dubbed the "Three Knights" of the Islamic Resistance:
Khalid Bazzi ("al-Hajj Qasim") from Bint Jbeil was chief of operations in the Bint Jbeil area, including Maroun al-Ras, Aynata, Aytaroun and Bint Jbeil. He led the operation where two Israeli soldiers were captured. He was killed 29 July 2006 in an air strike on a house in the old city of Bint Jbeil, together with two other Hezbollah members. Bazzi's death or significant role was never commented on by Israel. Muhammad Qanso ("Sajid ad-Duwayr") from the village of ad-Duwayr was a commander in the Hezbollah Special Force, who replaced Bazzi as commander of Bint Jbeil sector. He was killed 11 August in an air raid outside the village of Beit Yahoun, about five kilometres to the north of Bint Jbeil. Muhammad Sorour ("Jihad al-'Amili") from Ayta ash-Sha'b was a logistics officer. He was killed in an air raid on the village of Barish on 25 July. Sorour's death was never commented on by Israel. "Sajid ad-Duwayr" was the only dead Hezbullah commander correctly identified by IDF during the war. However, IDF did not learn his true identity (Muhammad Qanso) and got both the time and the place of his death wrong. He has not killed in the morning of 14 August and was not killed in either Bint Jbeil or Beirut's southern suburbs. And he was "a" commander, not "the" commander of Hezbollah Special Force. Muhammad Abu Ta'am was commander of Hezbollah forces in the town Bint Jbeil. He was killed in the same air strike as sector commander Khalid Bazzi. Two Hezbollah commanders were killed in battles around Wadi Hujeir/Wadi Sulouqi. Rani Adnan Bazzi died in hand-to-hand combat, together with seven of his men, in the town of al-Ghandouriya, controlling the strategic wadi crossing. A further three fighters were wounded in the battle and one of them were taken prisoner by the IDF. Commander Ali Mahmoud Salih ("Bilal") fought singlehandedly further up the wadi, firing ATGM rockets at the advancing Israeli tanks. In the end he was severely wounded by a drone strike and died some time later from his wounds.
==== Hezbollah prisoners ==== On 21 July, Israel Chief-of-Staff Dan Halutz presented one of the objective of the war as the "taking terrorists alive." He repeatedly ordered Israeli troops during the war to capture Hezbollah bodies "to show to the media". On 24 July the IDF announced that it had captured two Hezbollah fighters in Battle of Maroun al-Ras, the first it had captured in the war. According to Brig.Gen. Alon Friedman the prisoners were held in Israel. During a raid on Baakbek on 1 August, the IDF captured five Lebanese citizens, described by the IDF as "known Hezbollah gunmen". All five were later identified as civilians and released three weeks later. Israel claimed to have captured five Hezbollah fighters August 3, during a clash in Rajamin in which three Israeli soldiers were killed. On 8 August, Israel announced that it had also captured five Hezbollah "terrorists" in the Bint Jbeil area. The fighters were caught while sleeping and were carrying heavy weapons. A few days after the ceasefire IDF launched a second, seemingly unsuccessful, raid on Baalbek that led to the death of Lieutenant Colonel Emmanuel Moreno. According to The Jerusalem Post, two Hezbollah fighters were reportedly taken prisoner in the raid. Most of the alleged Hezbollah fighters apprehended by IDF during the war, later turned out to be ordinary Lebanese civilians. At the end of the war, Israel held only four Hezbollah fighters as prisoners (plus a civilian Hezbollah member and former fighter). None of them were commanders or Iranians. They were released in a prisoner swap with Israel in 2008. Israel had also seized the bodies of twelve dead Hezbollah fighters and brought them to Israel. They were returned to Lebanon in the prisoner exchange.
=== Lebanese Armed Forces === Though rarely engaged in combat, 43 Lebanese soldiers and policemen were killed.
=== Israeli civilians === Hezbollah rockets and mortars killed 44 Israeli civilians during the conflict, including a severely wounded Haifa resident who died from his wounds more than a year after the war. In addition four elderly died of heart attacks during rocket attacks. At least 19 of the 46 Israeli civilians killed by Hezbollah rockets and mortars were Israeli Arabs (mainly Sunni Muslims). The last civilian victim was an Israeli-Arab man who died on 30 August 2007, from injuries sustained in a rocket attack on Haifa. In addition, 4,262 civilians were injured—33 seriously wounded, 68 moderately, 1,388 lightly, and 2,773 suffered from shock and anxiety. According to Human Rights Watch, "These bombs may have killed 'only' 43 civilians, but that says more about the availability of warning systems and bomb shelters throughout most of northern Israel and the evacuation of more than 350,000 people than it does about Hezbollah's intentions."
Israeli civilians killed by Hezbollah rocket attacks, 12 July – 13 August 2006 (black) vs. the ethnic composition at the North of Israel (pink):
=== Israel Defense Forces === A total of 121 IDF soldiers were killed in the war, including the two soldiers who were seized in the cross-border raid that started the war. Their fates were not confirmed until their bodies were exchanged for Lebanese prisoners in 2008. Of the IDF fatalities, 68 were privates or Non-Commission Officers, 27 Warrant Officers and 26 Officers (9 Lieutenants, 8 Captains, 8 Majors and one Colonel). Matériel losses in the Israeli Defense Forces accounted for fewer than 20 tanks, depending in the source. Five tanks were damaged beyond repair ('lasting vehicle kills'), 22 tanks received armor penetrations, and 52 tanks suffered some form of damage. Other sources claim 20 main battle tanks were destroyed (6 to mines, 14 to anti-tank guided missiles—all Merkava II, III or IV). Three helicopters were lost to accidents and one to Hezbollah missile fire. One fixed-wing F-16 was lost during take-off. Three Hermes 450 drones were lost during the war, two by technical difficulties and one by an operator error. On 14 July, a Hezbollah operated a Chinese C-802 anti-ship missile, that struck the Israeli Navy's flagship INS Hanit killing 4 sailors and damaging the warship on the waterline, under the aft superstructure. The attack set the flight deck on fire and crippled the propulsion systems inside the hull. However, INS Hanit stayed afloat, withdrew and made the rest of the journey back to Ashdod port for repairs under its own power. The four crew members killed during the attack were: Staff Sergeant Tal Amgar, Corporal Shai Atas, Sergeant Yaniv Hershkovitz, and First Sergeant Dov Steinshuss.
