Between 12 July and 14 August 2006, a major military confrontation took place between Hezbollah and Israel following the capture of two Israeli soldiers and the killing of others, in a Hezbollah raid across the border between Israel and Lebanon. Israel launched attacks throughout Lebanon from land, sea and air, killing over 1,800 civilians, a third of whom were children. Hezbollah launched hundreds of rockets on northern Israel, killing 42 civilians. Hundreds of thousands of civilians in both Israel and Lebanon were displaced.
During more than four weeks of ground and aerial bombardment by the Israeli armed forces, Lebanon’s infrastructure suffered destruction on a catastrophic scale. 7,000* Israeli air attacks and 2,500 naval bombardments left entire neighbourhoods, villages, main roads, factories, bridges and homes reduced to rubble. Many families died in their homes or while fleeing aerial assaults. Scores lay buried beneath the remains of their houses for weeks, as rescue workers were prevented from accessing the affected areas. Internally displaced people returning home also had to contend with the threat of thousands of unexploded cluster munitions, which continue to blight southern Lebanon.
*All statistics: Amnesty International