The whole world was paying attention to the World Cup games when some teams from the special forces of the Islamic resistance of Lebanon (the military branch of Hezbollah) crossed the point Khala Warda on the Palestinian-Lebanese border at 9:05 AM, 12 July 2006, and captured Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, two Israeli soldiers of the patrol unit from the northern region of Israeli army in a special operation called “Al Waad al Sadeq” (the true promise).

Israeli politicians and generals did not expect Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the Secretary General of Hezbollah, to fulfill his promise in planning an operation to free Lebanese prisoners in Israeli jails, especially Samir Kuntar.

The operation was answered by Israeli air force, launching massive air raids against southern suburb of Beirut (Dahiya) and the whole Lebanese Shia regions. Hezbollah retaliated during future days and nights by firing hundreds of rockets and short range missiles at important Israeli targets. It not only targeted important cities like Haifa, but the main garrisons and headquarters of the Israeli armed forces in the north. 

The Zionists became more furious of the retaliation, especially after “Missile Unit” of the Islamic resistance movement hit Israeli warship Saar-5 (Ahi Hanit) off the port of Beirut, just when Sayyed Nasrallah promised the warship to be targeted during a live telephone speech, broadcasted by Al Manar, the Hezbollah satellite TV.

This military-media operation seemed so hard for Zionist leaders in Tel Aviv that they ordered an air raid on Al Manar headquarters in the Haret Hraik region in southern Beirut a few days later, but it was more surprising for them when Al Manar programs began to continue from another building in the area, and it didn’t stop during the war.

Condoleezza Rice, then American secretary of state, supported Israeli invasion of Lebanon, calling it “The birth pangs of the New Middle East”. However, Hezbollah missiles reached the town of Hadera, 20 km north of Tel Aviv during last weeks of the war, proving that Zionist settlers will pain more if this “New Middle East dream” continues more.

UN Resolution 1701 was the option of the global powers at the Security Council to stop the war, however, none of Israeli goals of the war (from a total annihilation of the Islamic resistance planned from the beginning of the war to preventing banish Hezbollah rockets and missiles from Lebanese-Palestinian borders) were realized.

Years later in an interview Martyr lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, Commander of the Iranian IRGC Quds Force who was in Lebanon during the war, informed leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that Israeli army was raising the level of military preparation to begin an all-out war against Lebanon to completely destroy Hezbollah and occupy the whole southern region of the Litani river in order to create new Zionist settlements in the region, a dream that had not been realized during the Israeli occupation of South Lebanon from 1978-2000.

The Hezbollah victory in the 33-day war was followed by an improvement in the capabilities of the Palestinian resistance forces, who fought Israeli forces in different wars on the Gaza Strip (22, 8, 51, 12, and 3-day wars), and the victorious experience of Hezbollah against Takfiri-Salafi terrorists in Syria (since 2013), what Zionists consider a potential threat, based on a very famous speech of Sayyed Hassan Nasrollah in which he said:

“O, warriors of Islamic resistance! Be ready for the day, when the supreme command asks you to liberate Zionist occupied regions in Galilee region!”

Mohammad Javad Mahdizadeh is a political-military analyst and historian researcher, focusing on West Asia, East Europe, and Latin America affairs.