When Palestinian militants seized an Israeli soldier in a raid outside the Gaza Strip on June 25, many Arab analysts noted that the Palestinians were finally learning the tactics of Lebanon's Hizbollah, the Shia Islamist group.

During 18 years of Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon, Hizbollah, an organisation also backed by Syria and Iran, tormented Israeli troops with military attacks and captures that helped end the Israeli presence in May 2000 and forced the Jewish state to agree to prisoner swaps, most recently in 2004.