Road to the Third lebanon war

Mapping Hezbollah’s War of Attrition Since October 8, 2023

By David Daoud and Ahmad Sharawi

On October 8, 2023, Hezbollah initiated an unprovoked and sustained war of attrition against Israel, purportedly in support of Palestinian militant factions in the Gaza Strip. This conflict has fluctuated in intensity, frequency, and scope. It began with border skirmishes and progressively expanded over the following months. Hezbollah has increasingly targeted areas farther from the Blue Line, the de facto frontier line with Israel, evolving from a tit-for-tat exchange to a broader confrontation

This is a conflict that should never have erupted. After the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1701 “to address urgently the causes that have given rise to the current crisis.” As a preliminary step, the resolution obligated Lebanon to “establish … between the Blue Line and the Litani river … an area free of any armed personnel, assets and weapons other than those of the Government of Lebanon and of UNIFIL,” i.e., to remove Hezbollah approximately 40km from the Blue Line. The resolution further “require[s] the disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon, so that … there will be no weapons or authority in Lebanon other than that of the Lebanese State”; Prohibits the presence of “foreign forces in Lebanon without the consent of its Government”; and prohibits “sales or supply of arms and related materiel to Lebanon except as authorized by its Government.”



Lebanon failed to act meaningfully or to restrain Hezbollah in any manner, bringing matters to the current moment.

Hezbollah's sustained and unprovoked hostility has finally, after nearly a year, led Israel to launch a large-scale operation. This offensive has significantly dismantled Hezbollah’s military command structure, culminating in the elimination of its secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah. The goal appears to be two-fold: degrading Hezbollah’s capabilities and returning an estimated 150,000 citizens safely to their homes in the northern communities.

What follows is a detailed timeline of the war of attrition from its onset on October 8, 2023, through the commencement of Operation Northern Arrows on September 23, 2024. An interactive dashboard and map are provided to complement the timeline.

March 22, 2022

Muhammad Galeb Ahmad Abu Alqian stabs and kills three Israelis, then rams and kills a fourth with his car in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba.

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Dashboard

Methodology

The map and timeline document attacks conducted by Hezbollah and other Lebanese and Palestinian militant factions operating in south Lebanon since October 8 — detailing munitions used, target and location, and casualties in each attack. It also similarly records Israel’s military operations in Lebanon as part of its overall exercise of its right of self-defense since that date. This resource draws upon credible Hebrew and Arabic open-source information to provide these details.

A specific note on “Operations by Actor”: The numbers in the interactive do not reflect the exact number of munitions used by each actor. Hezbollah itself acknowledges that the number below reflects overall operations claimed by the group but not the number of munitions used per operation. The number of munitions fired overall and, in each attack, is, therefore, much higher. Official Israeli estimates put this at approximately 8,000 projectiles fired by Hezbollah and allied factions. Hezbollah has not issued an official number of projectiles, most likely in the interest of concealing from Israel how much of its arsenal it has expended versus how much it retains.