Over the duration of three days - between May 22 and May 24, 2000 -  the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) withdrew from its reinforced positions within South Lebanon. In its wake it left behind a country giddy with the excitement of victory, and shaken by the fear of the repercussions.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak had said numerous times over the past year, that the withdrawal would take place in the month of July. However, it was carried out ahead of schedule as the IDF realized that Hizbollah guerrillas had started making inroads into the General Security Services (GSS or Shin Bet) intelligence network and the guerrillas showed no signs of easing their mounting operations against the IDF and its militia proxy, the South Lebanon Army (SLA).

As was disclosed in media reports later, the Hizbollah had, indeed, turned some senior SLA officers into double agents, who had supplied the guerrillas with the information required to mount some dangerous operations in the South. Moreover, as the month of April rolled in, the Hizbollah leadership increased the pressure on the SLA members who had grown increasingly demoralized over the past year in the occupied territories. Among some of Hizbollah’s psychological operation measures was an open call for amnesty for any SLA soldier who would kill an Israeli soldier or an SLA officer and then turn himself in.  The local media also kept the pressure up by widely reporting all accounts of SLA men killed, wounded or captured.

The Israelis had hoped that once the withdrawal started, the SLA militia would utilize its arsenal of T-72 and T-55 tanks and form a defensive wall between the advancing Hizbollah guerrillas and the retreating IDF forces. Instead, in many cases the SLA soldiers piled into their cars with their families and belongings, beat the IDF soldiers to the Fatima gate in Kifar Kila and other points of entry along the border, and demanded asylum in Israel.

At the end of the day, on May 24, 2000, the last IDF soldiers had left their garrisons in South Lebanon, and over 6000 SLA soldiers and their families had moved into Israel. Of the estimated 2500 SLA militiamen, only 500 were initially reported to have surrendered ( number was later confirmed to be 2200 surrenders). Often the surrenders were politically organized to protect the Muslim and Druze soldiers who had joined the militia under pressure or threats made against their families by agents of the Israeli GSS (Shin Bet). In one high profile case, Druze leader Walid Jumblatt was reported to have personally intervened to secure guarantees for the safekeeping and leniency toward the Druze who had joined the SLA under pressure. Jumblatt got his guarantees from both the Hizbollah and the Lebanese government, and many of the Druze subsequently drove out of the occupied areas and surrendered to the Lebanese Army or Hizbollah officials. 

The IDF and SLA withdrawal caught many observers, including the Hizbollah, by surprise. While Ehud Barak’s commitment to withdraw from South Lebanon had been largely accepted as an accurate assessment of the no-win situation faced by the Israeli troops in Lebanon, the timing of the withdrawal remained a matter of speculation. 

Under the leadership of President Hafez Assad, the Syrians had tried to attach the promise of a peaceful IDF withdrawal from South Lebanon to their negotiations with Israel regarding the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights in the early months of 2000. If the Syrian leadership were to allow the Hizbollah to continue an unsupervised and unrestrained thrust into the occupied areas it would complicate the issue of safety for the IDF troops and raised further questions regarding the security of the Israeli settlements in the north. There was circumstantial evidence to support this trend in the early months of the year 2000 - the Syrian disappointment over the negotiations for peace with Israel was accompanied by a continued volley of attacks by the Hizbollah on the SLA and IDF positions. Therefore, it seemed as if the Syrians might truly be able to use the Hizbollah as a card in their negotiations for the Golan and complicate the IDF withdrawal.

The early months of 2000 were chaotic. An unrelenting Hizbollah kept the pressure on the IDF by regularly attacking SLA positions and IDF patrols. On February 8, 2000, the Israeli forces launched air strikes on Lebanon’s power stations -  the move coming after the IDF lost their sixth man to Hizbollah guerrilla operations conducted over the previous two weeks. The casualties had weakened the political base of Ehud Barak, who already faced domestic pressure over the stalled Palestinian peace talks that week. Barak reacted by ordering the bombing of Lebanese electrical power plants. This was, in effect, a repeat of many such earlier Israeli actions against Lebanon, wherein the Israeli leadership hoped to use civilian strife in Lebanon to  influence the foreign policy decisions being made in Beirut and Damascus. 

The bombings carried on over two days, destroying millions of dollars worth of infrastructure. The Hizbollah carried on its operations despite the bombings on February 8, killing another IDF soldier with a hand-held Saggar missile at the IDF position in Dabshe.  But after the second day of bombings the Hizbollah prudently refused to escalate the situation by firing Katyusha missiles.

Seventeen civilians were reported injured in the Israeli raid, but the lack of fatalities made it politically feasible for the Hizbollah to refrain from firing Katyushas - an operational choice that could have resulted in wider Israeli bombarding of Lebanese territories. Israel was trying, in effect, to repeat a formula it had used to good effect in the past. In its statements to the world press, Israeli government officials refused to accept the April 1996 understanding brokered by France and the United States (which prohibited both sides from attacking civilian targets). Israel was, again, using loss of military personnel stationed in Lebanon as an excuse to launch attacks on civilian targets in Lebanon. The situation grew all the more complex when Hizbollah guerrillas managed to kill an IDF soldier during a mortar attack on the otherwise impregnable Beaufort castle on February 12, 2000. 

While the United States tried to blame the developments, as always, on the Hizbollah, the French were upset at the Israeli efforts to escalate the conflict.   France, in fact, had been involved in transfer of millions of dollars worth of funds and services to Lebanon as aid to overcome the infrastructure damage inflicted by the Israeli air raids of 1999. This time around, the Israeli attempt at an escalation, which was also indirectly aimed at the Syrian armed presence in Lebanon, could very well set the peace process back and start a larger war. In the end, under considerable pressure from the international community, the Israelis stopped their campaign against Lebanon and averted a repeat of the infamous 1996 Operation Grapes of Wrath. It seemed clear that Israel could not, at this point in the peace process, afford to isolate itself from the world community by escalating the conflict in Lebanon. The Israelis would have to leave Lebanon, and leave quickly to avoid further casualties.

The signs of an impending Israeli withdrawal became clear early in May 2000. On May 3, British correspondent Robert Fisk reported that the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon had begun, with 85 Israeli soldiers vacating their posts in Taibe and heading home.  Earlier, in March, the Israelis had vacated two posts in the Bekaa valley, but this time, Fisk noted, the Israelis “withdrew like mice… leaving before dawn, in silence and in secret.” The evacuation from Taibe came five days after a Hizbollah guerrilla blew himself up in South Lebanon, injuring three SLA men and destroying a gun battery.

The situation escalated again on May 5, 2000, when Israeli forces fired Hellfire missiles on the Lebanese power plant at Bsalim, destroying 4 transformers, and causing over $2 million worth of damages. The attack came in retaliation for the Hizbollah barrage of Katyusha rockets into Kiryat Shimona that had killed one Israeli soldier and injured 16 Israeli civilians. The Hizbollah defended their launch of the Katyushas on the grounds that shelling by the SLA one day earlier had killed two Christian women in South Lebanon. 

The Israelis had warned Lebanon earlier that if Katyushas were fired into Israel, the “soil of Lebanon will burn.” However, the Hizbollah, in this case, found itself backed into a corner. As per the 1996 understanding, the Hizbollah had sworn to retaliate with Katyusha strikes into Israel every time IDF or SLA actions caused civilian casualties in South Lebanon. To not do so now would indicate a softening of the Hizbollah position and could result in a slow down of the Israeli withdrawal.

It was also interesting to note that Israel, at this point in the conflict, had openly and aggressively warned that it would attack Syrian positions in Lebanon in retaliation for the Hizbollah attacks, as Israel held the Syrians responsible for Hizbollah actions in Lebanon. However, after the Hizbollah barrage on Kiryat Shimona, the Israeli refrained from attacking Syrian targets. Fisk alleged that this decision had been influenced by the US ambassador to Israel who had warned against a strike on Syria’s Lebanese positions as this would have crumpled the ongoing, US-brokered Israeli-Syrian peace talks. 

As this was a case of Hizbollah having retaliated on behalf of casualties in the Lebanese Christian community, and also as the Bsalim power plant was in a Christian neighborhood, the exchange seemed to have strengthened Hizbollah’s position against the Israeli actions in the Lebanese community. Hizbollah was able to draw legitimacy to its claim that it was a Lebanese movement aimed at Israeli occupation of Lebanese territory, irrespective of religious differences among the Lebanese communities residing in the occupied areas. Furthermore, Israel’s hesitation in attacking the Syrian Army created an atmosphere of strategic limitation - the Hizbollah now knew that it could engage the Israelis in a limited conflict that was balanced in favor of the Hizbollah. The Hizbollah were unafraid of casualties among their ranks, but the Israelis could not bear the political weight of any more IDF casualties in Lebanon.

Realizing that they were caught in the middle of an impending IDF pullout, the SLA started decaying and falling apart. On May 10, 2000, the SLA commander, General Antoine Lahd, threatened that his soldiers would continue to wage a war against the Lebanese Army in South Lebanon unless the government agreed to provide amnesty to all his troops.  Lahd did not request amnesty for himself, but his announcement was seen as a last ditch measure by the SLA to seek a solution in Lebanon in the face of Israeli hesitation in accommodating the militia within Israeli territory. Lahd’s threat was seen as a desperate action and only reinforced the confidence among the Hizbollah guerrillas, who dismissed his threat and countered it by assertions that they were capable of routing the SLA. The Lebanese government responded by refusing to provide amnesty to the SLA and demanding they surrender to face the law of the land, which would prosecute the members of the SLA as traitors and collaborators.

Having failed to secure a future in Lebanon, the SLA realized that its only option was to demand asylum in Israel, and in order to do this it would have to charge the border before the IDF itself had an opportunity to cross over and reinforce the positions. In effect, SLA soldiers realized that if they stayed behind and fulfilled their role of guarding the IDF withdrawal the impending exchange of fire with the advancing Hizbollah guerrillas would destroy them. Signs of this realization were visible as the SLA men started defecting to the Hizbollah or surrendering to the Lebanese Army in droves. 

Those among the ranks of the SLA who knew they couldn’t surrender, having committed torture and war crimes against suspected Hizbollah supporters in South Lebanon, knew their only option was to escape before the border closed. Their fear was heightened by Hizbollah’s offer of amnesty to any SLA militiaman who would kill an SLA officer before defecting. Among the first to cross the border with their families were GSS (Shin Bet) agents who had tortured and killed civilians at the behest of their Israeli bosses.  The loss of the GSS agents and informers greatly reduced the IDF’s capacity to collect information, and increased concerns regarding the safety and security of the IDF troops in Lebanon. In effect, a spiral of events had been successfully set into motion by the Hizbollah that deteriorated the Israeli and SLA forces day by day.

The Hizbollah were also careful to reduce tensions among the Lebanese civilians and the international community by passing out regular statements to the press during this time. The statements, often made by local Hizbollah volunteers, reiterated their commitment to protect the non-Shia villages of the South and also reassured the community that they would not seek an escalation of the conflict by following the IDF or the SLA into Israel. In doing so the Hizbollah wanted to check the hysteria among the Christians villages of South Lebanon in particular, as some of these villages had not been as aggressive in their resistance to IDF, and feared being labeled across the board as collaborators. 

Furthermore, the Hizbollah wanted to assure the international community that it would not cause another Middle East war by attacking Israel after the IDF withdrew, as this was a common, and widely published view aired before the Western press by many Israeli settlers in north Israel. These settlers had declared the IDF withdrawal to be a betrayal of their community and had predicted a mass slaughter of their settlements at the hands of Hizbollah once the IDF withdrew. The settlers had been able to use the past Katyusha attacks by the Hizbollah as effective examples of what might happen again if the IDF withdrew and left them unprotected.

By May 22, 2000, the IDF had evacuated a third of its occupied zone and returned to Israel.  As word of the withdrawal spread, Hizbollah guerrillas, followed by news crews and hundreds of ordinary Lebanese civilians drove down to the liberated villages and towns. In many cases the convoys of Lebanese guerrillas, journalists and patriots arrived in time to watch the last IDF or SLA vehicle leaving. Many a times the retreating tanks and armored vehicles fired at the approaching vehicles to keep them at a distance while the troops made their getaway. With the Hizbollah on their heels and no concrete SLA positions to provide cover, the IDF started a race for the border that carried on, over night and day, over many skirmishes, with the IDF positions close to the border inside Israel providing cover to the retreating troops by conducting artillery barrages, tank attacks and helicopter gunship missions. 

By daybreak on May 24 the last convoy of the IDF troops had left the occupied Lebanese territories. The IDF troops, who had captured Beaufort castle in 1982 in a daring paratrooper landing, left the castle the way they had arrived: by air. The invincible fortress had turned out to be as difficult to get out of as it had been to get into. As Hizbollah guerrillas crossed minefields to organize mortar attacks, the IDF had no option but to sit in their concrete bunkers and await evacuation. Once the bulk of the IDF had crossed the border and more resources were made available, under the cover of darkness, helicopter after helicopter arrived in the region of Arnoun to help evacuate the IDF soldiers trapped inside the castle. The retreating Israeli soldiers blew up portions of the castle before they left, but within a day Lebanese families were swarming to the fortress they had not seen in more than 18 years and having picnics with their children by the banks of the Litani river that flowed through the valley below the mountain fort.

At the Khiam prison, where Israeli GSS agents and SLA prison guards had illegally detained and tortured hundreds of Lebanese civilians, the liberation came with a whimper. The SLA prison guards simply left their posts and ran away as scores of villagers, many of them unarmed, swarmed up the hill to the prison to liberate the inmates. 

Strangely enough, the pictures of the retreating IDF troops broadcast all over the world showed them to be smiling and waving ‘V’ signs. Meanwhile, Hizbollah guerrillas swept in to capture the tanks, armored vehicles, artillery and ammunition left behind by the escaping SLA troops. In the confusion and frustration of the withdrawal, IDF troops fired upon SLA men and their families on their way to the border in order to keep the roads open for a quick withdrawal of IDF troops and equipment. Two SLA fighters and a woman died by Israeli fire, and six others were wounded.

Firing indiscriminately, Israeli Merkava tanks lobbed shells across the border onto vehicles driving down the roads in South Lebanon.  One of the shells hit a car carrying the BBC correspondent Jeremy Bowen. Bowen, who was standing beside the car recording the developments, escaped unhurt but his driver was killed. Israeli helicopters also fired rockets onto a car full of Lebanese journalists but missed. 

By late afternoon on May 25, hundreds of Hizbollah guerrillas and ordinary Lebanese civilians were jeering at IDF troops across the fence, many of them seeing the land of Palestine (refusing to call it Israel) for the first time. IDF soldiers watched as the Lebanese waved Hizbollah flags and raised anti-Israel slogans. 

General Antoine Lahd, the SLA commander who had issued statements from Paris announcing his imminent arrival to rally his troops against the Lebanese (Hizbollah) forces, never showed up. On May 25, gunmen from the Amal movement moved into Lahd’s home village of Marjayoun and looted his home.   On the other Hizbollah was widely reported, in local and international media, to have arrested the SLA men who were left behind in a polite fashion and treated them as prisoners of war, without subjecting them to abuse or beatings.

Antoine Lahd visited the makeshift SLA refugee camps in northern Israel a few days after the withdrawal had been completed, and faced the ire and frustration of his troops and their families. Most of the SLA troops and their families were not granted asylum by Israel, and many continue to wait in camps in northern Israel hoping to be accepted as refugees in other countries in Europe, Australia and South America. Of the hundreds who did surrender many got light prison sentences in Lebanese courts, with more severe sentences being delivered to those who had committed atrocities and been active in the repression of the citizens in South Lebanon.

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  Robert Fisk, “Lebanon on brink of war with Israel,” The Independent, 9 February 2000
  Robert Fisk, “Death comes calling again on a Crusader castle,” The Independent, 12 February 2000
  Robert Fisk, “US heaps blame on the victim, say Lebanese,” The Independent, 11 February 2000

  Robert Fisk, “After 22 Years, Israel Begins Its Departure From Lebanon,” The Independent, May 3, 2000.

  Robert Fisk, “Israel redirects Hellfire missiles ‘after US advice’,” The Independent, May 6, 2000.
  Robert Fisk, “Israel fires barrage of threats on eve of pull-out,” The Independent, May 10, 2000.
  Robert Fisk, “No mercy for Israel’s allies in South Lebanon,” The Independent, May 17, 2000.

  From an interview with UNIFIL officers in South Lebanon who witnessed the evacuation of SLA officers in May 2000. The UNIFIL officers had knowledge of the identity of GSS agents, and claimed that they were the first to leave the occupied areas and escape into Israel.

  Robert Fisk, “In the end, they just skulked away,” The Independent, May 23, 2000.
  From a personal interview with Hizbollah volunteers and prisoners who were present in or around the Khiam prison and Khiam village during the liberation.
  While SLA troops were given possession of some T-55 and T-72 Soviet tanks captured from the Syrians, the Israeli Merkava tank was operated only by the IDF troops.
  Robert Fisk, “Chaos, humiliation, bloodshed: after 22 years Israel withdraws from Lebanon,” The Independent, May 24, 2000.
  Robert Fisk, “The holy warriors of Hizbollah realize their impossible dream,” The Independent, May 25, 2000.
  Robert Fisk, “The holy warriors of Hizbollah realize their impossible dream,” The Independent, May 25, 2000.
  From a personal interview with Spokesperson Timur Goksel at the UNIFIL Headquarters in Naqoura, South Lebanon, July 2000.

  From a personal interview with Robert Fisk in Beirut, June 2000.
  From a personal interview with a UNIFIL officer in C Coy HQ in Chebaa, July 2000.

  From personal interviews with the Hizbollah press attaché in Beirut, June 2000.

  Syrian President Hafez Assad died of a prolonged illness soon after the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, on June 11, 2000. He did not live to see the fulfillment of his life-long dream to liberate all of Syrian territory from the Israeli occupation - a steadfast demand that had won him much praise and adoration among the Arab community. Hafez’s son Bashar had been groomed for the past few years for succession to the position of President of Syria, a grooming that had included a stint in independently handling the political situation in Lebanon. In fact, the blueprint of the year 2000 parliamentary elections in Lebanon, which included the redrawing of many new alliances and seat sharing, were reported to have been drawn up by Bashar himself. While Bashar’s candidacy for the Presidency was very strong, it was feared than any reversal of fortunes in terms of the crises with Israel would seal his failure by giving his detractors an issue to chase him out of office with. With this in mind, both the Lebanese government and the Hizbollah became especially cautious of their actions in relation to Israel, as they realized that the immediate danger of destabilizing Syria was far worse than suffering Israeli slights for a few months. 

  From a personal interview with Hizbollah members in Beirut, June 2000

  From a personal interview with Dr. Nizar Hemzeh at the American University of Beirut, June 2000.

  From a visit to the INDBATT area of operations in South Lebanon July 2000.
  From a personal interview with Dr. Mohammad Harb in the village of Taibe South Lebanon, July 2000.

  A first-hand account of observations made in South Lebanon in June-July 2000.
  Sheikh Ahmed Obeid is the cousin of the Hizbollah leader Abdel Karim Obeid, who continues to be held without trial in an Israeli prison.