the very heavy toll of 14 months of conflict

A ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah came into effect early Wednesday in Lebanon, after more than a year of cross-border hostilities and two months of open warfare between the Israeli army and the armed Lebanese movement backed by Iran. The clashes left more than 3,800 dead and nearly 15,000 injured.

A ceasefire therefore came into effect on the night of Tuesday November 26 to Wednesday November 27 in Lebanon. Israel and Hezbollah reached an agreement for a truce, which began at 3 a.m. French time. This agreement remains fragile, but nevertheless marks the end of more than a year of a deadly conflict. A war that can be divided into two very distinct phases. First a low-intensity conflict, which began on October 8, 2023, the day after the Hamas terrorist attacks, with rocket fire from Hezbollah, which caused the flight of around 60,000 inhabitants of northern Israel. Then an open, violent war, launched in September 2024 by the Israeli army, which decided to concentrate its forces on the Lebanese Shiite movement.

The operation of the pagers, September 17 and 18, 2024, and the simultaneous explosion of hundreds of these small boxes, which served as means of communication for the militia, kicked off two months of massive bombardments on the south and east of Lebanon, as well as on the suburbs south of Beirut, stronghold of Hezbollah whose emblematic figure, Hassan Nasrallah, was killed, like most of the movement’s senior leaders.

The clashes left more than 3,800 dead and nearly 15,000 injured, mainly civilians on the Lebanese side, while around a hundred Israeli soldiers and civilians lost their lives. The damage is also considerable. First in the Lebanese capital, where many neighborhoods in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Dâhiye, are today in ruins. These clashes pushed nearly a million residents into exile, towards other regions of the country or towards Syria. Beyond the destruction, the war continued to weaken the Lebanese economy to its knees. Hezbollah’s banks, which provided part of the population’s financing, were destroyed.

Militarily, the Lebanese movement is considerably weakened, with a decimated chain of command. Its fighting force has lost at least 10% of its capabilities, and according to experts, between 60 and 80% of its arsenal of medium and long-range missiles has been destroyed. Nearly a thousand missiles were notably neutralized in the border zone in the south of the country, which was the major objective of an Israeli army, which, if not annihilating Hezbollah, will have succeeded in limiting its danger, the ceasefire agreement providing for moving its troops around twenty kilometers away. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu now confirms that he wants to concentrate “on the Iranian threat”.