(Adnkronos) – For the fourth time in less than 50 years, Israel has put ‘boots on the ground’ in Lebanese territory, always with the same objective: to create a security buffer between its enemies and the border. The first, in 1978, was aimed at repelling Palestinian fighters and seizing a narrow strip of land along the border with Lebanon, which at that time had become a refuge for about 100,000 Palestinians. In 1982, Israel invaded the south of the Cedar Country, an event that contributed to the birth of Hezbollah, founded with the declared aim of expelling Israeli forces.
Then in 2006, the Israeli operation ‘Summer Rains’, also known as the 33-day war, was launched. It was triggered by an attack in the Jewish state by Hezbollah militants, who kidnapped two soldiers and killed eight others. The IDF reacted by bombing Hezbollah military targets such as rocket launchers from July 12, but also roads, ports and Beirut airport. Ten days later, the ground offensive began, with the declared aim – the same as the new operation – of pushing Hezbollah north of the Litani River. Hostilities ceased on August 14, when Israel, Hezbollah and the Lebanese government accepted United Nations Resolution 1701.
In the fighting, 1,100 Lebanese were killed, including civilians and Hezbollah militants, 120 IDF soldiers and over 40 Israeli civilians. In July 2008, following UN-mediated negotiations, the bodies of the kidnapped soldiers were returned to Israel in exchange for five Lebanese prisoners and the bodies of about 200 others.
