2006 - 2007

2006, February 5 - Denmark's embassy in Beirut is torched during a demonstration against cartoons in a Danish paper satirising the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh).

2006, July 12 - Israel launches air and sea attacks on targets in Lebanon after Lebanon's militant Hezbollah group captures two Israeli soldiers. Civilian casualties are high and the damage to civilian infrastructure wide-ranging. Thousands of people are displaced. In August Israeli ground troops thrust into southern Lebanon.

2006, August 14 - Truce between Israel and Hezbollah comes into effect after 34 days of fighting and the deaths of around 1,000 Lebanese - mostly civilians - and 159 Israelis, mainly soldiers. A UN peacekeeping force, expected to consist of 15,000 foreign troops, begins to deploy along the southern border.

2006, September 23 - Lebanese government forces deploy along the Israeli border for the first time in decades.

2006, November 12 - Ministers from Hezbollah and the Amal movement resign shortly before the cabinet approves draft UN plans for a tribunal to try suspects in the killing of the former prime minister Hariri.

2006, November 22 - Leading Christian politician and government minister Pierre Gemayel was shot dead when gunmen riddled his car with bullets in Sin El Feel. In a second incident, shots were fired on the office of a Lebanese minister of state (Michel Pharaon), shortly after Gemayel's death.

2006, December 3 - Hundreds of thousands of opposition supporters demonstrate in Beirut to demand the resignation of the government. Tent town has sprung up in central Beirut as part of the opposition sit-in to demand more say in government.

2007, January 23 - Thousands of protesters have paralyzed Lebanon with a general strike that led to street clashes in which three people were killed. More than 100 people were injured as protesters fought with government supporters in the capital, Beirut, and other parts of the country. The demonstrators blocked roads with burning tires. Flights were canceled and businesses closed. The Hezbollah-led opposition called the strike and is urging fresh elections.

2007, May 20 - fighting broke out between Fatah al-Islam, an Islamist extremist militant organization, and the Lebanese Armed Forces, in Nahr al-Bared, a Palestinian refugee camp near Tripoli.

2007, May 30 - The UN Security Council votes to establish a special tribunal to try suspects in the assassination of former premier Hariri.