Hezbollah 1985–88 War of the Camps. However, Hezbollah's early primary focus was ending Israel's occupation of southern Lebanon following Israel's 1982 invasion and siege of Beirut. Amal, the main Lebanese Shia political group, initiated guerrilla warfare. In 2006, former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak stated, "When we entered Lebanon … there was no Hezbollah. We were accepted with perfumed rice and flowers by the Shia in the south. It was our presence there that created Hezbollah". Hezbollah waged an asymmetric war using suicide attacks against the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Israeli targets outside of Lebanon. Hezbollah is reputed to have
Hezbollah armed strength Hezbollah's "classic" guerrilla warfare. Hezbollah's initial tactical choices involved human wave attacks, similar to those used by Iran in the Iran–Iraq War, and terrorist tactics like kidnappings, aircraft hijackings, and mass-casualty suicide attacks to hurt Israel's resolve to fight. Hezbollah engaged in short raids to harass and kill and did not try to hold territory. Although initially very successful, these choices imposed a heavy cost on the organization in casualties and in public opinion. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 1985 said the group's command and control was "virtually non-existent" and described the organization as not a hierarchy but defined