Hezbollah, along with other Shia Muslim and left-wing guerrillas, fought against Israel and its ally, the Catholic Christian-dominated South Lebanon Army (SLA).

Israel officially names the conflict the Security Zone in Lebanon Campaign and deems it to have begun on 30 September 1982, after the end of its "Operation Peace for Galilee".

[20] The Israeli government hoped that a withdrawal from the security zone could be carried out in the context of a wider agreement with Syria and, by extension, Lebanon.

The Lebanese–Israeli agreement created the armistice line, which coincided exactly with the existing international boundary between Lebanon and Palestine from the Mediterranean to the Syrian tripoint on the Hasbani River.

Israeli forces captured and occupied 13 villages in Lebanese territory during the conflict, including parts of Marjayoun, Bint Jbeil, and areas near the Litani River,[22] but withdrew following international pressure and the armistice agreement.

Although with a stated requirement for defense, later Israeli expansion into Lebanon under very similar terms followed the 1977 elections, which for the first time, brought the Revisionist Likud to power.

[22] Beginning with the late 1960s and especially in the 1970s, following the defeat of the PLO in Black September in Jordan, displaced Palestinian militants affiliated with the Palestine Liberation Organization began to settle in South Lebanon.

Following multiple attacks launched by Palestinian organizations in the 1970, which increased with the Lebanese Civil War, the Israeli government decided to take action.

After earlier covert support, Israel established a second buffer with renegade Saad Haddad's Christian Free Lebanon Army enclave, initially based only in the towns of Marjayoun and Qlayaa.

For the first time, Israel received substantive adverse publicity in the world press due to damage in South Lebanon, in which some 200,000 Lebanese, mostly Shia Muslims, fled the area and ended up in the southern suburbs of Beirut.

This indirectly resulted in the Syrian forces in Lebanon turning against the Christians in late June and complicated the dynamics of the ongoing Lebanese Civil War.

In 1987, Hezbollah fighters from the Islamic Resistance stormed and conquered an outpost in Bra'shit belonging to the South Lebanon Army in the security zone.

[32] In September 1987, Israeli aircraft bombed three PLO bases on the outskirts of the Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp, killing up to 41 people.

[35] In May 1988, Israel launched an offensive codenamed Operation Law and Order in which 1,500–2,000 Israeli soldiers raided the area around the Lebanese village of Meidoun.

[38] On 27 July 1989, the Hezbollah leader in South Lebanon, Sheikh Abdel Karim Obeid and two of his aides, were abducted from his home in Jibchit, by IDF commandos.

[44] Though the majority of the Lebanese civil war conflicts ended in the months following the Ta'if Accord, Israel kept maintaining a military presence in South Lebanon.

[45] On 4 July 1991, following the failure of disarmament negotiations, as required by the Taif agreement, the Lebanese Army attacked Palestinian positions in Southern Lebanon.

One of Nasrallah's first public declarations was the "retribution" policy: If Israel hit Lebanese civilian targets, then Hezbollah would retaliate with attacks on Israeli territory.

After one week of fighting in South Lebanon, a mutual agreement mediated by the United States prohibited attacks on civilian targets by both parts.

[58] On 7 February 1994 four Israeli soldiers were killed and three wounded in an ambush in southern Lebanon, which Hezbollah announced was to mark the anniversary of Abbas al-Musawi's death.

[67] Less than a week later Amitai was again lightly injured when Hezbollah unleashed a mortar barrage on an SLA position near Bra'shit he was visiting, together with Maj. Gen. Amiram Levine, head of the IDF's Northern Command.

In the first half of 1997, Hezbollah gradually reduced its infiltration attempts and increasingly resorted to long-range shelling of IDF and SLA outposts.

Encouraged by these successes, Israeli commandos began conducting raids north of the security zone to kill Hezbollah members in their home villages.

[73] On 28 August, a major friendly fire incident occurred in Wadi Saluki during a clash between IDF troops from the Golani Brigade, together with air and artillery support, and Amal militants.

[75] A rescue force of helicopters and missile boats arrived to provide support, conducting airstrikes as the rescuers evacuated the dead and survivors.

[75] In 2010, Hassan Nasrallah claimed that in 1997, Hezbollah had managed to hack into Israeli UAVs flying over Lebanon and thus learn which route the commandos were planning to take and prepared ambushes accordingly.

[81] On 9 February 1999, the first fatal attack on Israeli troops since October 1998 took place when Hezbollah fighters ambushed an IDF unit of the Givati Brigade.

In January 2000, Hezbollah assassinated the commander of the South Lebanon Army's Western Brigade, Colonel Aql Hashem, at his home in the security zone.

As preparation for the major withdrawal plan, Israeli forces began abandoning several forward positions within the security zone of South Lebanon.

Ehud Barak has argued that "Hezbollah would have enjoyed international legitimacy in their struggle against a foreign occupier", if the Israelis had not unilaterally withdrawn without a peace agreement.