Bereaved Parents will gather on Mt. Adir by the Lebanese border for a short memorial service. The official national memorial service will take place next Monday, at the military cemetery on Mt. Herzl, in Jerusalem.
The Second Lebanon War was a 34-day military conflict in Lebanon, and northern Israel .The principal parties were Hizbullah paramilitary forces and the Israeli military. The conflict started on 12 July 2006, and continued until a United Nations-brokered ceasefire went into effect in the morning on 14 August 2006, though it formally ended on 8 September 2006 when Israel lifted its naval blockade of Lebanon.
The conflict began when militants from the group Hizbullah fired rockets at Israeli border towns as a diversion for an anti-tank missile attack on two armored Humvees patrolling the Israeli side of the border fence. The ambush left three soldiers dead. Two additional soldiers, believed to have been killed outright or mortally wounded, were taken by Hizbullah to Lebanon. Five more were killed in a failed rescue attempt.
Israel responded with airstrikes and artillery fire on targets in Lebanon that damaged Lebanese civilian infrastructure, including Beirut's Rafic Hariri International Airport , an air and naval blockade, and a ground invasion of southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah then launched more rockets into northern Israel and engaged the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in guerrilla warfare from hardened positions.
Hizbullah casualties: 500-1000
IDF casualties: 121