Ливанға Израильдің 1978 жылғы әскери шабуылы

Invasion of southern Lebanon by Israel as part of the Lebanese Civil War

In November 1977, an exchange of gunfire led to the deaths of several people on both sides of the Israel–Lebanon border and led to Israel's bombing of targets in southern Lebanon that killed 70 people, mainly Lebanese. The proximate cause of the Israeli invasion was the Coastal Road massacre that took place near Tel Aviv on 11 March 1978. On that day, 11 Palestinian Fatah members led by the 18 year old female fighter Dalal Mughrabi travelled from Lebanon to Israel, where they killed an American tourist at a beach before hijacking a bus on the Coastal Road near Haifa; the group later also hijacked a second bus that was bound for Tel Aviv. After a lengthy chase and shootout, 38 Israeli civilians, including 13 children, were killed and 76 were wounded.

On 14 March 1978, Israel launched Operation Litani, after the Coastal Road Massacre. Its stated goals were to push Palestinian militant groups, particularly the PLO, away from the border with Israel, and to bolster Israel's ally at the time, the South Lebanon Army, because of the attacks against Lebanese Christians and Jews and because of the relentless shelling into northern Israel. The area south of the Litani River, excepting Tyre, was invaded and occupied in a week long offensive. The operation began with air, artillery, and naval bombardment, after which IDF infantry and armor forces, comprising about 25,000 soldiers, entered south Lebanon. The Israelis first captured a belt of land approximately 10 kilometers deep, by launching a ground attack on all PLO positions along the Lebanese border with Israel. The ground forces were led by two division commanders, and attacked simultaneously along the entire front. Paratroopers landed from helicopters to capture all the bridges on the Litani River, cutting off the possibility of retreat by the PLO, and later expanded north to the Litani River. The IDF did not succeed in engaging large numbers of PLO forces, who retreated to the north. According to Augustus Richard Norton, professor of international relations at Boston University, the IDF military operation killed approximately 1,100 people, most of them Palestinian and Lebanese. According to IDF reporting and internal investigation, at least 550 of the casualties were Palestinian militants initially holding the front line and killed by the IDF ground operation. According to other sources about 2000 Lebanese and Palestinian were killed. Estimates for the number of people displaced by the military operations range from at least 100,000 to 250,000. Israel also transferred American weapons to Saad Haddad's Lebanese militia, a violation of American law. UNIFIL forces arrived in Lebanon on 23 March 1978, setting up headquarters in Naqoura. Resolution 425 didn't result in an immediate end to hostilities. The Israelis continued military operations for 2 more days until they ordered a ceasefire. Hostilities continued as the Lebanese civil war escalated as fighting intensified in the south. Continued attacks in Israel from the Lebanese based PLO culminated in a second Israeli invasion in 1982 resulting in a flare up that persisted over the next decade.

In 2000, the UN Security Council concluded that, as of 16 June 2000, Israel had withdrawn its forces from Lebanon in accordance with Resolution 425. Lebanon has not extended control over south Lebanon, though it was called on to do so by Resolution 1391 of 2002 and urged by Resolution 1496. Israel has lodged multiple complaints regarding Lebanon's conduct. Hezbollah's claim that Israel has not fully withdrawn (see Shebaa Farms) was explicitly rejected by the UN's Secretary General's report which led to Resolution 1583. The Syrian occupation of Lebanon led to UN Security Council Resolution 1559 demanding the remaining 14,000 (of 50,000 originally) Syrian troop withdrawal and the dismantling of Hezbollah and Palestinian militias. On 26 April 2005, after 29 years of Syrian military presence in Lebanon, the last of the Syrian troops withdrew in accordance with the resolution.