From liberation to renewed conflict: Lebanon marks 26 years since Israeli withdrawal from south

Report by Wissam Nasrallah, English adaptation by Mariella Succar

On this day, May 25, 2000, southern Lebanon moved southward.

Villages whose residents had been displaced began returning home. Gates of the Israeli border zone collapsed, Israeli forces withdrew in haste, and soldiers abandoned positions they had long described as necessary for Israel’s security. The scene marked a historic turning point.

After 22 years of Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon, the era of the so-called “security zone” came to an end. Israel had established the area in the 1980s. At the time, a large segment of Lebanese society, along with supporters of the resistance—particularly Hezbollah—rallied around what they described as a military and political victory that reshaped the region, known as “the liberation.”

Today, 26 years later, the picture is markedly different.

The south is devastated, with large areas under Israeli control. Hundreds of thousands are displaced, and domestic discourse is focused less on victory than on loss, reconstruction, and a broader question: how did Lebanon move from celebrating Liberation Day to facing renewed conflict and displacement?

The answer begins a few years after 2000.

Up to the 2006 war, Hezbollah projected an image of a force that had endured and even claimed victory over Israel. The group maintained that narrative even as internal Lebanese dynamics began to shift.

May 7, 2008, proved pivotal. A government decision targeted Hezbollah’s private telecommunications network and dismissed a senior security official at Beirut airport. The group viewed the decision as a direct attack on the “resistance.”

Hezbollah fighters deployed across Beirut, and the crisis escalated into armed clashes and the takeover of parts of the capital. The events left a deep impact on many Lebanese, for whom the question of armed power increasingly extended beyond Israel and into internal political conflict.

Then came 2013 and the war in Syria.

Hezbollah’s intervention in Syria reshaped its image domestically and internationally. Its supporters viewed it as an existential battle and a matter of strategic supply lines, while its opponents said the group had become a regional actor.

Over time, the costs accumulated: casualties, economic strain, sanctions, and deepening political divisions.

Then came October 17, 2019, when Lebanon’s economic collapse triggered mass protests. Hezbollah initially voiced support for what became known as the uprising, but later argued that elements of the movement threatened stability or targeted its weapons.

The protests exposed a deeper divide over Lebanon’s political system and the role of armed groups within it. The rift was no longer solely about Israel, but about the nature of the state itself.

Years later came the August 4, 2020 Beirut port explosion, which many Lebanese blamed on state negligence and systemic failure, followed by the October 7, 2023 war in Gaza. Hezbollah entered the conflict under the banner of “support.”

Rocket fire, drone attacks, and cross-border operations followed, escalating into a wider conflict that spread across Lebanon—from the south to Beirut’s southern suburbs and the Bekaa Valley—with renewed intensity in 2026, amid Iranian backing and vows of retaliation for the killing of senior figures.

Entire villages were destroyed, infrastructure was damaged, and the economy deteriorated further, deepening a crisis that has reshaped the country.

Between May 25, 2000, and May 25, 2026, the distance is measured in more than years alone.

In 2000, Lebanon celebrated Israel’s withdrawal from the south. In 2026, the country remains divided over a more complex question: whether Resistance and Liberation Day still represents the same historical moment, or whether 26 years of war, transformation, and internal division have reshaped the meaning of liberation itself.