Israel and Lebanon share a history of decades-long war. The series of attacks on October 7, 2023, by Hezbollah, a Shia militant group in southern Lebanon, to deter Israel from its war on Gaza, is a continuation of this history. However, recent cross-border clashes between Hezbollah and Israel ramped up when Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was assassinated by a USA-Israel airstrike campaign against Iran on February 28, 2026. This event revived the decades-long confrontation between Hezbollah leadership and Israel’s Defense Forces (IDF). Israel has taken the ground that Hezbollah is a terrorist organization operating from the soil of Lebanon. Taking this into consideration, Israel has once again invaded southern Lebanon while displacing thousands of Lebanese and killing civilians, committing war crimes to defend its right to self-defense.

Israel’s Justification for the Lebanon Invasion

“If I’m strong, why should I negotiate? If I’m weak, how can I negotiate?” Thomas Friedman

“If I’m strong, why should I negotiate? If I’m weak, how can I negotiate?”

This reflects the Israeli geopolitical psyche, the core justification of Israel’s aggressive foreign policy and disproportionate military campaigns across the Middle East, of which Lebanon is once again at the center. Israel characterizes its territorial seizure of Lebanon’s sovereign land as neutralizing Hezbollah’s military capacity, creating a depopulated southern buffer zone, and annexing the territory up to the Litani River to achieve the ultimate goal of Greater Israel. The manifestation of all these objectives has resulted in the 1948, 1982, and 2006 invasions and the ongoing cataclysmic invasion of Lebanon.

Israel and Hezbollah share a history of being adversaries, each posing a threat to the other’s existence. Although it is not wrong to say that Hezbollah is a result of what Israel caused in Lebanon during its 1982 invasion. After 7,000 cross-border strikes between Hezbollah and Israel between October 2023 and June 2024 from the Lebanon border to support the Palestinians in Gaza, Israel has positioned Hezbollah as a major security threat. So, one of Israel’s core security concerns is to degrade Hezbollah’s massive missile arsenal, a 150,000-plus rocket capability that could paralyze Israeli infrastructure.

Lebanon represents one of the nodes in the supply chain of these military weapons and capabilities. Moreover, the land of Lebanon serves as a host for Hezbollah to operate and grow. Using this as leverage, Israel documents........

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