Israel's Lebanon Wars, 1982 and 2006

What happened

Israel has fought two full wars in Lebanon, and it held a strip of southern Lebanon for the eighteen years between them. ⁴

The first war started with the PLO. Yasser Arafat's organization had built a state within a state in southern Lebanon and used it to shell and raid northern Israel; a July 1981 cease-fire was repeatedly violated, and Israel counted 270 attacks over eleven months that killed 29 Israelis and wounded more than 300. ² In June 1982, terrorists led by Abu Nidal tried to assassinate Israel's ambassador to Britain, Shlomo Argov, in London. ² Israel hit PLO targets in Lebanon on June 4, and the ground invasion, called Operation Peace for Galilee, began on June 6. ^{1 2}

The plan the cabinet approved was a 25-mile push to clear PLO positions out of rocket range. ¹ The army went considerably farther: Israeli forces broke Syrian positions in the Bekaa Valley and reached Beirut by June 9, and by mid-June they had somewhere between 6,000 and 9,000 PLO fighters surrounded in the western half of the city. ^{1 2} The siege ended in a negotiated evacuation. ² A multinational force arrived on August 21, roughly 14,000 PLO fighters shipped out, and Arafat left for Tunisia on August 30. ²

On September 16, 1982, Defense Minister Ariel Sharon and Chief of Staff Rafael Eitan allowed the Christian Phalangist militia, Israel's Lebanese ally, into the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Beirut. ¹ The Phalangists massacred Palestinian civilians there. ¹ Eight days later, 400,000 Israelis filled a square in Tel Aviv to protest the war. ¹ On September 28 the cabinet appointed a commission of inquiry under Supreme Court President Yitzhak Kahan, with Justice Aharon Barak and Major General (Res.) Yona Efrat, to examine "all the facts and factors connected with the atrocity." ³

The Kahan Commission reported in February 1983. It found no Israeli directly responsible, and Israel indirectly responsible, because Israel knew of the Phalangist entry into the camps. ³ It held Sharon responsible for "ignoring the danger of bloodshed when he approved the Phalangists' entry as well as not taking appropriate measures to prevent bloodshed," Eitan for failing to give orders that would have stopped the killing, and Prime Minister Menachem Begin for not involving himself more. ³ It recommended that the defense minister resign and that the director of Military Intelligence be removed. ³ Sharon resigned. ¹

Between June 1982 and May 1985, 1,216 Israeli soldiers were killed. ² Israel completed a phased pullback in June 1985 but held a security zone along the border, a belt roughly 15 miles deep running from the Mediterranean to the Shebaa Farms, policed with a Lebanese proxy militia called the South Lebanon Army. ⁴ That arrangement lasted eighteen years. ⁴ Hezbollah grew up in that space and fought Israel there in small unit actions, year after year; a single midair collision of two Israeli troop helicopters in 1997 killed 73 soldiers. ⁴ When the SLA began collapsing under Hezbollah pressure, Israel got pulled deeper in, and on May 24, 2000, Israeli forces withdrew. ⁴

The second war began on July 12, 2006, when Hezbollah crossed the border, killed eight Israeli soldiers and abducted two, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev. ⁵ The fighting ran nearly five weeks. ⁵ Hezbollah fired close to 4,000 rockets into Israeli towns, more than 100 on some days; at least 157 Israelis were killed and nearly 400,000 left their homes in the north. ⁵ Around 1,000 Lebanese were killed and some 800,000 displaced. ⁵ The Security Council adopted Resolution 1701 unanimously on August 11, 2006, and Israel's cabinet accepted it on August 13. ^{5 7} Goldwasser's and Regev's bodies came home in a prisoner exchange in July 2008. ⁵ Israel's own Winograd Commission, reporting in April 2007 and January 2008, found "very serious failings" in how the prime minister, defense minister, and chief of staff made decisions. ⁵

Why it still matters

Resolution 1701 is still the framework Israel's northern border runs on, and it was never implemented. ⁶ It demands a full cessation of hostilities, the disarming of every armed group in Lebanon so that no weapons or authority exist other than the Lebanese state's, and an area between the Blue Line and the Litani River free of any armed personnel, assets, and weapons except Lebanese forces and UNIFIL. ^{6 7} It authorized UNIFIL, the UN force in south Lebanon that dates to Resolutions 425 and 426 in 1978, to grow to a maximum of 15,000 troops. ^{6 7} Hezbollah did not disarm and did not leave the zone. ⁶ Between October 2023 and June 2024 alone, UNIFIL logged more than 15,000 fire trajectories crossing the Blue Line, with strikes reaching 130 kilometers into Lebanon and 30 kilometers into Israel. ⁶ In 2025 the Council extended UNIFIL through the end of 2026 and set its withdrawal for 2027. ⁷

Sabra and Shatila also left a precedent. A sitting Israeli government appointed sitting Supreme Court justices to examine its own war and published what they found. ³ It cost the defense minister his job. ¹ Our view: that record is why "Sharon was found responsible" and "Israel carried out the massacre" are two different sentences, and the difference is in the commission's own text. ³

The words you'll hear

Operation Peace for Galilee. Israel's name for the June 1982 invasion, approved as a 25-mile operation to push PLO rocket crews back from the northern border, which then ran to Beirut. ¹

The security zone. The belt of southern Lebanon, about 15 miles deep from the sea to the Shebaa Farms, that Israel held with the South Lebanon Army from 1985 until May 24, 2000. ⁴

The Kahan Commission. The Israeli judicial inquiry into Sabra and Shatila, appointed September 28, 1982, which reported in February 1983 that Israel bore indirect responsibility and recommended the defense minister's resignation. ³

The Blue Line. The 120-kilometer line the UN drew in 2000 to certify Israel's withdrawal. It is a line of withdrawal, not an agreed border. ⁶

UNIFIL. The UN Interim Force in Lebanon, created by Resolutions 425 and 426 in 1978 and enlarged by Resolution 1701 to as many as 15,000 troops. ^{6 7}

Resolution 1701. The August 11, 2006 ceasefire resolution requiring an end to hostilities, the disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon, and a zone empty of weapons between the Blue Line and the Litani. ^{6 7}