(Reuters) – Israel looks set to approve a U.S. plan for a ceasefire with Lebanon’s Hezbollah on Tuesday. The war broke out following the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and has been waged in parallel with the Gaza conflict.
Here are some key events.
2023:
Oct. 8 – Iran-backed Hezbollah starts firing rockets at Israeli military positions in support of its ally Hamas, a day after the Palestinian militant group led a wide-ranging attack on southern Israel.
Israeli airstrikes pound border areas of south Lebanon and attack sites in the Bekaa valley, while Hezbollah strikes northern Israel. Hezbollah says there will be no ceasefire with Israel until the war in Gaza ends.
In subsequent weeks, tens of thousands of people flee homes on both sides of the border. Both sides signal they do not want an escalation and keep exchanges mostly near the border area.
Dec. 1 – Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants exchange fire across the border, resuming hostilities that were paused during a Nov 24-Dec. 1 ceasefire in Gaza between Hamas and Israel.
2024:
Jan. 2 – Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri is killed by a drone in Beirut in an attack widely attributed to Israel.
Jan. 8 – Israel kills top Hezbollah commander Wissam Tawil in a strike in south Lebanon. More than 130 Hezbollah fighters have been killed in hostilities since Oct. 7.
Jan. 9 – Hezbollah attacks an Israeli army base with explosive drones deployed from Lebanon, hitting the position for the first time in what it declares part of its response to Israeli assassinations in Lebanon. Hezbollah deputy leader Naim Qassem says his group does not want to expand the war from Lebanon “but if Israel expands (it), the response is inevitable to the maximum extent required to deter Israel”.
Jan. 11 – U.S. special envoy Amos Hochstein says in Beirut he is hopeful diplomacy could calm tensions on the Israel-Lebanon border.
July 27 – A strike on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights kills 12 youths playing football in a Druze village. Israel accuses Hezbollah of the attack. Hezbollah says it launched strikes on what it said were military targets in nearby areas but denies killing the youngsters.
July 30 – Israel kills Fuad Shukr, a senior commander who helped Hezbollah expand from a Lebanese civil war militia to a major force in the Middle East, in a strike near Beirut.
Aug. 25 – Hezbollah launches hundreds of rockets and drones at Israel, in one of the biggest clashes in more than 10 months of border warfare, in reprisal for Shukr’s assassination.
Sept. 16 – Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant tells U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin the window is closing for a diplomatic solution.
Sept. 17 – At least nine people are killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members explode. Israel’s Mossad spy agency planted explosives inside pagers ordered by Hezbollah months before, Lebanese sources say.
Sept. 23 – Israel dramatically intensifies its airstrikes across Lebanon, killing more than 550 people in a single day, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.
Sept. 27 – Israel kills Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who led the group through decades of conflict with Israel, in an airstrike in Beirut.
Oct. 1 – Israeli military says it begins “limited, localised and targeted ground raids” against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon villages close to the border. In subsequent days it tells residents of dozens of towns in southern Lebanon to evacuate.
Oct. 4 – Israel kills prominent Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine, the presumed successor to Nasrallah, in an airstrike.
Oct. 8 – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urges the Lebanese to throw out Hezbollah or risk “destruction and suffering like we see in Gaza”.
Throughout October and November, airstrikes pummel Beirut’s Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs, and areas in Lebanon’s south and east. Hezbollah keeps up rocket fire into Israel.
Nov. 23 – An Israeli airstrike kills 29 people in central Beirut, Lebanon’s health ministry says, in the deadliest strike on the heart of the capital since Israel began stepping up its assault on Hezbollah in September.
Another 13 people are killed in attacks on villages northeast of the capital in Baalbek district.
Nov. 25 – Lebanon’s deputy speaker of parliament Elias Bou Saab says there are “no serious obstacles” left to beginning the implementation of a U.S.-proposed 60-day truce to end the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.
Lebanon’s health ministry says Israeli strikes on Lebanon killed at least 3,768 and wounded 15,699 since October 2023.
According to Israeli authorities, Hezbollah strikes have killed 45 civilians in northern Israel and the Golan Heights. At least 73 Israeli soldiers have been killed in northern Israel, the Golan Heights and in combat in southern Lebanon.
(Compiled by Angus MacSwan and Reuters bureaus; Editing by William Maclean)
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