BACKGROUND: The Israel-Hezbollah War, July 12 - August 14, 2006

Jan 30, 2008, 14:51 GMT

Tel Aviv - The conflict known in Israel as the Second Lebanon War broke out on July 12, hours after militants from the Lebanese Hezbollah movement snatched two Israeli soldiers and killed three others in a cross-border attack.

Hezbollah also fired Katyusha rockets and mortars into Israel, and an enraged Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, then defence minister Amir Peretz and former military chief of staff Dan Halutz ordered the Israel Defence Force (IDF) onto the offensive to recover the soldiers.

Israel's strategy initially focussed on massive aerial and artillery bombardments. Large numbers of ground forces were called up only at a later stage.

Within days it became apparent that the government's stated aims of bringing the two seized soldiers back home was not likely to be achieved, and Israeli officials talked instead of pushing Hezbollah back from the border, where it had entrenched itself over the years.

That too proved a difficult goal to meet.

Hezbollah responded to the Israeli offensive by launching nearly 4,000 rockets at northern Israeli towns and villages, reaching as far south as the port city of Haifa and beyond.

Israel's air force, for its part, pounded Hezbollah targets and Lebanese infrastructure, particularly in southern Lebanon and Beirut's southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold.

By the time a ceasefire came into effect on August 14, more than 1,200 Lebanese and 164 Israelis had been killed.

The vast majority of Lebanese dead were civilians caught up in the Israeli aerial and artillery bombardments, while the Israeli fatalities included 45 civilians killed by Hezbollah rockets.

As the war drew to a close, public opinion in Israel became highly critical of the government and military's performance during and before the war. Reserve soldiers and bereaved parents also launched protests, saying troops did not receive clear orders, proper equipment and advance training and preparation.

While Israelis overwhelmingly supported the war, which they regarded as a justified and appropriate reaction to the unprovoked raid by Hezbollah, many later viewed it as a failure because it did not achieve the government's stated aims of retrieving the two soldiers and significantly weakening Hezbollah.

The protests eventually led Olmert to promise a government- appointed commission of inquiry, led by retired judge Eliyahu Winograd, which published an interim report in April analysing the years and hours leading up to, and the first five days of the war. Its final report focusses on the course of and conclusion of the war.