(Bloomberg) -- Since Hamas launched a new war with Israel on Oct. 7, the Lebanese militia Hezbollah has expressed solidarity with the Islamist Palestinian group through military action. It has fired missiles, mortars, rockets and explosive drones into northern Israel almost daily, prompting Israel to respond with its own fire. Fears that the fighting would escalate to full-scale war escalated after 37 people in Lebanon died after pagers and walkie-talkies, old-fashioned gadgets used by Hezbollah operatives to avoid tracking of their communications, exploded on Sept. 17 and 18 in what was widely seen as an Israeli sabotage operation. Israel hasn’t commented on the events.
What is Hezbollah?
Shiite Muslims in Lebanon formed what would become Hezbollah — “party of God” — in 1982, in reaction to Israel’s occupation of the country’s south. The movement was inspired by the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Shiite-majority Iran, and Hezbollah is supported and heavily influenced by Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. (Shiite Muslims and Sunni Muslims each comprise about 30% of Lebanon’s population.) Because it is separate from Lebanon’s military, Hezbollah can attack targets without provoking the reaction such a move by a state would precipitate. Still, Israel and Hezbollah have fought repeated battles, including a war in 2006. Like Hamas, Hezbollah is designated by the US as a terrorist organization. The group is thought to have been behind a number of major attacks on US targets in the 1980s.
How does Iran support Hezbollah?
Iran provides Hezbollah with “most of its funding, training, weapons, and explosives, as well as political, diplomatic, monetary, and organizational aid,” according to the US State Department. The department says the group also gets funding from legal and illegal sources, including “smuggling contraband goods, passport falsification, narcotics trafficking, money laundering, and credit card, immigration and bank fraud.” Hezbollah has said in the past that all of its resources come from Iran, and it has repeatedly denied involvement in drug trafficking.
How is Hezbollah different from Hamas?
Hezbollah has grown to become the Middle East’s most powerful militia and Iran’s most important ally, its leaders helping to maintain Iran’s network of aligned militant groups, which includes Yemen’s Houthi rebels. Hezbollah’s fighting force is bigger, better-armed and more battle-tested than that of Hamas, which is also supported by Iran. Hezbollah says it has 100,000 fighters; Israel’s military estimates it has 20,000 to 25,000 full-timers plus tens of thousands of reserves. Hamas was widely said to have had about 30,000 fighters in the Gaza Strip before the war; Israel says it has killed some 15,000 militants in the current fighting.
Hezbollah’s arsenal contains more than 70,000 rockets and missiles, including long-range and precision-guided missiles, according to Israeli intelligence. The Israelis estimated prior to the current war that Hamas and other militant groups in the Gaza Strip had about 10,000 short and mid-range rockets. Hezbollah’s fighters gained significant combat experience during Syria’s civil war, when they fought alongside Iranian and Russian forces to help Syrian President Bashar al-Assad prevail against rebels. That was important to Hezbollah because Syria, under Assad, has served as a route for the militia to receive military materiel from Iran, which has no border with Lebanon.
What is Hezbollah’s role inside Lebanon?
Hezbollah is a powerful force in Lebanon. It operates a large network of social services that’s shored up its base of support as the country endures its worst economic crisis in decades. It’s also politically active, holding, along with its allies, a majority in Lebanon’s parliament from 2018 until 2022. Hezbollah’s alliance with the Shiite Amal Movement, headed by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, ensures that together they represent most of the country’s Shiite community. Hezbollah also has close ties with the Christian party founded by former President Michel Aoun. Before Syria’s civil war began in 2011, Hezbollah had promoted itself as a force dedicated to fighting Israel and defending the oppressed, regardless of their background. But since becoming enmeshed in Syria’s war, it’s been viewed by many Sunni Muslims as a Shiite group doing Iran’s bidding in the region.
Will Hezbollah and Israel advance to full-scale war?
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Sept. 18 that Israel was in a “new phase” of war with regional Islamist groups and said troops would be diverted to the Lebanese border, an indication that long-held fears of a wider conflict there may soon be realized.
The US and France have been working on a diplomatic solution to end the fighting that would involve Hezbollah moving forces away from the border and Israel ending military flights over Lebanon. Hezbollah has publicly said that it wouldn’t negotiate any terms without a cease-fire in Gaza.
All-out war poses risks for both Israel and Hezbollah, as well as Iran.
For Israel, a new conflagration with Hezbollah would mean fighting a two-front war. The campaign against Hamas in Gaza has already strained the country. It’s come with an enormous financial cost and has disrupted foreign trade and industries such as construction. The human toll in Gaza has stressed relations with the US, Israel’s most important ally.
The clashes along the Israel-Lebanon border have prompted the months-long displacement of tens of thousands of people on both sides; a more intense fight would worsen the hardship for civilians.
For Hezbollah, there are political risks, especially at a time when Lebanon’s economy has been in dire straits since a financial meltdown in 2019 and almost three-quarters of the population now live in poverty. Hezbollah has a hard core of support in the country, but its intervention in Syria also made it many enemies – and it could alienate even more people if it’s seen as dragging the country into someone else’s war.
For Iran, Hezbollah is considered to be the most precious asset it has for projecting influence and frustrating US interests in the Middle East. That asset could be severely depleted in a prolonged conflict.
--With assistance from Galit Altstein.
(Updates death toll in telecommunications explosions in Lebanon)
©2024 Bloomberg L.P.
