The Israeli army bombed Ain Derb in southern Lebanon at the end of September 2024. Many people were killed or injured that weekend, and a woman wailed and mourned at a mass funeral held on October 1st 2024.

　　The Israeli army bombed Ain Derbe in southern Lebanon at the end of September 2024. Following the large number of deaths that occurred over the weekend, women wept at a mass funeral held on October 1st 2024. The Lebanese Ministry of Defense announced that the death toll from the Israeli military's attack on Ain Dherab on September 29 had reached 45.

　　From October 1, 2024, the Israeli military invaded southern Lebanon across the border and launched a ground attack against the Iran-backed Islamic Shiite militant group Hezbollah. The aim was to keep Hezbollah forces away from the Israeli border. First, the Israel Defense Forces began ground raids against Hezbollah terrorist targets and infrastructure in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah, a Lebanese militia and political party supported by Iran, began firing on Israel on October 8th in order to support Hamas, which has been at war with Israel since the terrorist attack on October 7th, 2023.

　　The history of conflict between Israel and Lebanon began on March 11, 1978, when Israeli forces invaded Lebanon in pursuit of Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) militants who had attacked a civilian bus near Tel Aviv, killing 35 people and injuring 71. Israeli soldiers spent about a week in southern Lebanon, driving the PLO north of the Litani River in Lebanon. In 1982, the Israeli army invaded southern Lebanon and drove out the PLO, which was based in Lebanon, again. The war-born Hezbollah has been a designated U.S. terrorist organization since 1997, and receives financial support from Iran and has pledged allegiance to Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khomeini. The Shiite militia was formed in the early 1980s with the aim of resisting Israeli forces. Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000, and Hezbollah gained popularity. In August 2006, a month-long war broke out between the two countries, with both aerial bombardment and ground attacks. The 34-day conflict left around 1,200 people dead in Lebanon and 43 in Israel. For the next 17 years, the two countries followed UN Security Council Resolution 1701, and kept hostilities at a minimum along the border.

Warning: A woman mourns during a funeral Tuesday for people killed over the weekend in Israeli strikes on Ain Deleb in southern Lebanon.　(Amr Abdallah Dalsh / Reuters)