History Illustrated is a series of perspectives that puts news events and current affairs into historical context using graphics generated with artificial intelligence.
Hezbollah was born of war, the seeds of which were sown in June 1982 when Israel invaded Lebanon, saying it had to get rid of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
As the Lebanese civil war raged in the background, the Israeli military in August 1982 forced the PLO to relocate to Tunisia, but stayed on in Lebanon to support its proxies in the civil war.
In mid-September 1982, a Lebanese militia, in coordination with the Israeli army, carried out the Sabra and Shatila massacre, killing up to 3,500 Palestinian refugees and Lebanese civilians.
Outraged by Israel’s role in the mass killing, Shia Muslims, reportedly backed by Iran, organised an armed resistance against Israel and its allies in the West that came to be known as Hezbollah.
The armed group quickly grew in strength, drawing support from young people and other residents in the Bekaa Valley and the southern suburbs of Beirut – areas with a large population of Shia Muslims.
By 1985, Hezbollah had forced Israel to withdraw to the south of Lebanon, ending this first Israel-Lebanon war, but the group maintained a low-intensity conflict until Israel withdrew from the country entirely in 2000.
In 2006, Hezbollah killed three Israeli soldiers in Israeli territory and captured two others, Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser, leading to the second Israel-Lebanon war (the July war), which lasted 34 days.
Since October 2023, Hezbollah has been firing rockets into Israel, to force a ceasefire in Gaza. But on September 17, 2024 Hezbollah members were targeted when 5,000 pagers exploded, maiming hundreds of people in an attack blamed on Israel.
As of September 23, Israel has ramped up its attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon, with aerial bombings that have killed hundreds and caused a panicked exodus from southern Lebanon. Which, many observers say, has all the makings of a third Lebanon-Israel war.
