Recent weeks have seen a spate of vigorous Israeli defense measures against the Lebanon-based terror group Hezbollah, which have drawn interest from around the world.

Just last week, the IDF bombed Hezbollah headquarters in Beirut, killing Hassan Nasrallah, the secretary-general of Hezbollah.

Nasrallah’s bloody reign over the past 40 years led to the death of not only Israelis, but also Americans, Syrians, and Lebanese people.

While many people know that Hezbollah is a military proxy of Iran, and that it has targeted Jews around the world, the Israeli actions over the past few weeks caught many by surprise.

So what are the roots of this conflict, and why is it coming to the fore now?

On October 8, 2023, Hezbollah launched rocket and mortar attacks on Israel, in what it called “solidarity” with the Gaza-based Hamas. On the previous day, Hamas murdered approximately 1,200 Israelis and kidnapped another 240, in the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.

Israel, it must be repeated, is a small country about the size of New Jersey.

From the Mediterranean near Tel Aviv to Judea and Samaria, Israel’s width is about 9 miles — walkable in two hours at a brisk pace.

From a military perspective, Israel has no strategic depth. This means that Israel cannot withdraw behind its frontiers and absorb an enemy blow before gathering its strength and responding, as a large nation might.

What is sometimes forgotten overseas, but never in Israel, is that Hezbollah’s continuing attacks on Israel’s North affected the country’s lived reality over time — perhaps even more than Hamas’ attack in the South.

In the past year, Hezbollah has launched more than 8,000 rockets at Israeli cities and military targets. More than 21,500 acres in the Galilee and Golan Heights, much of them forest preserves, have been burnt by fires sparked by Hezbollah rockets.

As a result of the incessant bombardment, more than 60,000 Israelis are internally displaced from Israel’s North, down from 100,000 earlier this year.

Agriculture is devastated in this region, which accounts for about a third of Israel’s agricultural lands, and about 73% of its domestic egg production. Kiryat Shmona, with a prewar population of over 20,000 and a major incubator for food tech startups, is down to 20% of its population from last year, with those remaining hunkered down against the incoming Hezbollah missiles.

Worst of all, Hezbollah is also targeting and killing civilians on the Israeli side of the border, including 12 children playing soccer in the Golani village of Majdal Shams.

Unfortunately, every Israeli also knows that this situation could worsen. In 2006, Israelis spent a wartime summer in bomb shelters, reminding many of the London Blitz. Hezbollah is still believed to possess an estimated 150,000 rockets and missiles, and is specifically training its “Radwan Forces” for a ground invasion of northern Israel, intended to be similar to October 7.

Israel has responded with a series of highly targeted strikes to downgrade Hezbollah’s ability to commit atrocities against Israeli civilians, short of a full-scale war.

On July 30, Israel eliminated Fuad Shukr, who played a central role in Hezbollah’s 1983 bombing of the US Marine barracks in Beirut, which killed 241 US servicemen and women. For his long standing crimes against Americans and others, the US State Department was offering a reward of up to $5 million for tips on Shukr’s whereabouts, which the US government can now use for something else.

On September 20, 2024, Israel conducted an airstrike in Beirut, eliminating senior Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Aqil, along with 15 other top commanders. Aqil had been orchestrating immediate plans for a large-scale Hezbollah invasion of northern Israel, and had ties to the 1983 US embassy bombing in Beirut.

Most dramatically of all, in a move right out of a spy thriller, on September 17 and 18, a series of explosions rocked Hezbollah’s communications network. This surgical strike exclusively impacted devices belonging to members of the terror network.

Thousands of pagers (on the 17th) and walkie-talkies (on the 18th) equipped with explosives detonated, killing at least 37 Hezbollah operatives and wounding thousands more. Though Israel didn’t claim responsibility, Hezbollah vowed retaliation.

Another crucial element here is the weak Lebanese state.

After Hezbollah assassinated Lebanon’s Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri in 2005, the Syrian army was forced by popular outrage to withdraw from its occupation of Lebanon.

However, Hezbollah refused to budge, and started a war with Israel the following year. In 2011, Hezbollah saved Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad from being overthrown by his people, helping him brutally slaughter over 500,000 Syrian civilians.

Israel is a small country, Lebanon is a weak one, and Iran — Hezbollah’s master — believes that this is a moment of Western weakness and navel-gazing, the perfect chance to commit atrocities that would never be possible in ordinary times.

As Hamas did on October 7, Hezbollah has indicated that it would commit genocidal acts against Israeli civilians, given the chance.

Israel is defending itself to ensure that this never happens — as any other country in the world would do, and as every other country in the world should support.

Hen Mazzig is an Israeli writer, speaker, and Senior Fellow at the Tel Aviv Institute. He’s appeared as an expert on Israel, antisemitism, and social media in the BBC, NBC News, LA Times, Newsweek, and more. Follow him on: @henmazzig

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