Operation Accountability

   In July 1993, Israel sent forces into southern Lebanon in response to the launching of mortar shells and Katyusha rockets on Israeli civilian population centers in the northern Galilee region. The purpose of the operation was to punish the Iranian- and Syrian-backed Hezbollah and the militant Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command. By disrupting the lives of the civilian population in southern Lebanon, Israel sought to achieve two goals: to dissuade local villagers from cooperating with the terrorist groups (for example, by allowing them to store weapons and fire missiles at Israeli targets from the relative safety of villages or providing safe haven to the terrorists) and to pressure the Lebanese central government to impose order over the terrorist factions operating with impunity in the border region. The operation ended when the United States helped broker a general agreement between Israel and Hezbollah to avoid targeting civilians in their continuing conflict in southern Lebanon.