Israel is now at war on its western and northern borders as a tense stalemate with Hezbollah, a militant group in Lebanon, has escalated into open conflict.

The current clash goes back a year. Hezbollah started firing missiles into Israel in solidarity with Hamas the day after Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel. A year of back-and-forth bombings between Hezbollah and Israel followed. Yesterday, Israel struck more than 1,300 sites across Lebanon. More than 490 people died in the attacks.

Since Israel sent troops into Gaza to fight Hamas, analysts and officials have warned that the war could spiral into a regional conflict. Hamas is part of a network of anti-Israel groups backed by Iran that spans the Middle East. That network includes Hezbollah.

The airstrikes over the past few days, in retaliation for Hezbollah’s own attacks, move Israel closer to an all-out war in the region against Iranian proxies. Today’s newsletter will explain what led to the strikes, what’s happening now and what might come next.

Year of escalation

Hezbollah is a large paramilitary group that says it wants to destroy Israel and curb U.S. influence in the Middle East. The group, founded during Israel’s war in Lebanon in the 1980s, is also a powerful force in Lebanese politics and essentially runs part of Lebanon. It has spent much of its four-decade history attacking Israel, Israel’s allies and other targets around the world, including a Jewish cultural center in Argentina in 1994.