A radical Islamist Shia political party and militant group based in Lebanon, Hezbollah has been designated a terrorist organisation by the UK, the US and other Western nations. But the Iran-backed group functions more like a state within the Lebanese state than a traditional terrorist outfit.
How does Hezbollah operate in Lebanon?
It has 13 lawmakers in the Lebanese parliament (out of 128), it runs an extensive network of social services – including clinics, schools and youth programmes – and it has a lucrative smuggling and money-laundering operation.
With a highly trained military wing, Hezbollah has been called the world’s most heavily armed non-state actor. It claims to have 100,000 fighters (though independent estimates put it between 20,000 and 50,000), as well as a massive arsenal of small arms, drones and, according to the CIA, upwards of 150,000 rockets and missiles. It’s a well-trained, technologically savvy, battle-hardened organisation.
When did it emerge?
During the Lebanese civil war, when Israel invaded over its border into southern Lebanon in 1982, in response to attacks from the exiled Palestinian Liberation Organisation. Southern Lebanon’s largely Shia population, traditionally the poorest of the country’s three big sectarian groups, was caught in the crossfire and took up arms against Israel. Seeing a chance to spread its Shia Islamic revolution, Iran’s rulers provided funding and training to several Lebanese Shia groups, which united under the name Hezbollah – or “Party of God” – and fought a brutally effective guerilla campaign, pioneering suicide bombing as a weapon (it is blamed for the attack on a US Marine barracks in 1983 that killed 241).
When Israel finally withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000, Hezbollah won much credit from the Lebanese, and across the Arab world. Hassan Nasrallah, its leader since 1992, hailed it as “the first Arab victory in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict”.
What does Hezbollah want?
Its founding 1985 manifesto declared that its aims were to drive the Israelis out of Lebanon and to eliminate the State of Israel – still a fundamental ambition today. It also aimed to oppose US “imperialism”, to spread the Iranian revolution, and to create an Islamist state in Lebanon – which has a substantial Christian population. Hezbollah has since softened the latter goal, unveiling a new document in 2009 that said the group supports “true democracy”. It still serves the interests of Iran, which the US says provides up to $700m a year in funding. But it has autonomy and its own specific aims; it should not be seen as a mere proxy.
How many wars has it fought in?
In 2006, Hezbollah sparked a new war with Israel with a cross-border raid, in which it killed eight Israeli soldiers and kidnapped two others. The month-long conflict, in which some 1,100 Lebanese and about 160 Israelis were killed, ended in a UN-brokered ceasefire. Israel’s campaign was also immensely destructive of Lebanese civilian infrastructure: it attacked Beirut airport and industry.
Hezbollah’s next major conflict began in 2012, when it sent thousands of fighters to help Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad – a member of the Shia offshoot Alawite sect – crush a largely Sunni uprising. The group’s fighters battled alongside Russian forces, experienced brutal urban combat, and emerged a formidable military force – but at a considerable cost to their image as freedom fighters in the Arab world.
What is its relationship to Hamas?
Hezbollah is a long-term ally of the Palestinian terrorist group, which is also backed by Iran. But relations have not always been warm. Hamas, a Sunni organisation, backed the Sunni rebels in Syria’s civil war; after a rift, it reconciled with Hezbollah in 2019, when it became clear that Assad would remain in power.
Some Hamas officials have suggested that Hezbollah helped train and equip its fighters for the 7 October massacre in Israel last year; Nasrallah denies the claim, saying the slaughter was a “100% Palestinian” operation. However, Hezbollah expressed full-throated solidarity with Hamas following the atrocity. “Our hearts are with you,” a top official said at a Beirut rally on 8 October. “Our history, our guns and our rockets are with you.” And since the event, there has been a rise in clashes along the Israel-Lebanon border.
What has happened since 7 October?
Before it, Hezbollah’s attacks had been sporadic. Since then, the group has launched more than 8,000 rockets at northern Israel and military positions on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, and attacked military targets with drones and anti-tank missiles. About 60,000 people have been evacuated from northern Israel. In July, 12 Israeli children and teenagers from the Druze sect were killed in Majdal Shams, a town in the Golan Heights. Israel has responded with a series of targeted attacks on Hezbollah personnel, which escalated sharply last week.
How might Hezbollah respond?
Although Nasrallah’s rhetoric has been bellicose, so far his response has been limited. In theory, a full attack on Israel would be devastating. Hezbollah has long-range precision-guided missiles which, if launched from its extensive network of defences and tunnels, could overwhelm Israeli defences, hitting Tel Aviv and other cities.
But there are good reasons for showing restraint. Firstly, Iran may be urging caution, because it doesn’t want to expend the deterrent posed by its armed ally on Israel’s border. Lebanon has also been in a dire economic crisis since 2019, with over 40% of the population in poverty. This has helped reduce support for Hezbollah. And the public remembers the devastating effects of the 2006 war; soon after, Nasrallah was asked whether, with hindsight, he would have ordered the raid that sparked it. “No, absolutely not,” he said.