While all wars contain an element of the absurd, in looking at the conflict in Lebanon in the summer of 2006 – in what sparked it and what was achieved – it is hard to find a modern comparison for sheer senselessness. On the morning of July 12, 2006, Hezbollah fighters in southern Lebanon conducted a raid on an Israeli army border outpost, killing three soldiers and taking two others back across the frontier as prisoners. An Israeli army unit that went in pursuit of the attackers instead stumbled into a Hezbollah ambush, resulting in the deaths of five more Israeli soldiers. From that small beginning, a war began that will continue to have ramifications in the Middle East for decades to come.
