Hezbollah, which has exchanged fire with Israeli forces since October, last went to war with Israel in 2006 and has since expanded its domestic and regional influence, politically and militarily.

Financed and armed by Iran, Hezbollah is the most prominent actor in the so-called axis of resistance — regional pro-Tehran armed groups opposed to Israel that also include Palestinian group Hamas, Iraqi movements, and Yemen’s Huthi rebels.

Since the day after Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel that triggered war in the Gaza Strip, Hezbollah has launched cross-border attacks from Lebanon seeking to tie up Israeli military resources in support of its Palestinian ally.

Fears of all-out war have spiked after Hezbollah vowed to avenge an Israeli strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs last month that killed a key commander, Fuad Shukr, and Iran pledged retaliation for the killing in Tehran, blamed on Israel, of Hamas’s political chief Ismail Haniyeh.

Hezbollah-Israel War

Hezbollah, whose name means “Party of God” in Arabic, was founded during the Lebanese civil war after Israel besieged the capital Beirut in 1982, and has since become a key domestic political player.

Created at the initiative of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, the Shiite Muslim movement gained its moniker as “the Resistance” by fighting Israeli troops who occupied southern Lebanon until 2000.

Israel and Hezbollah fought a month-long war in July-August 2006 that killed some 1,200 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians, and 160 in Israel, mostly soldiers, after the group kidnapped two Israeli troops in a cross-border raid.

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 ended that conflict and called for the Lebanese army and United Nations peacekeepers to be the only armed forces deployed in south Lebanon.

But Hezbollah has maintained a discreet presence there, where it enjoys broad support and where experts say it likely has a network of underground tunnels.

On August 16, the group released a video showing what appeared to be underground tunnels and large missile launchers, without revealing their location.

The group also has a strong presence in the Bekaa valley in east Lebanon near the border with Syria.

Hezbollah has bolstered its powerful arsenal, including with guided missiles, and says it can count on more than 100,000 fighters.

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah was elected secretary-general in 1992 after Israel assassinated his predecessor, and he rarely appears in public. 

Hezbollah’s Regional Influence

Hezbollah is a key actor in the Middle East, where it plays a central role in the “axis of resistance”. It has supported and trained Iran-backed groups in Iraq and Huthi rebels in Yemen, who since October have claimed attacks on Israel and Israeli-linked shipping interests.

Hezbollah is also present in Syria, where many of its members have fought in support of President Bashar al-Assad in his country’s civil war, with Damascus also an ally of Tehran.

Domestically, Hezbollah is the only Lebanese faction to have retained its weapons after the country’s 1975-1990 civil conflict, doing so in the name of “resistance” against Israel.

It is now a key political player, though detractors have accused it of being a “state within a state”.

Political deadlock between Hezbollah allies and their adversaries since late 2022 has prevented the election of a new president, in a country experiencing a grinding economic crisis.

Hezbollah’s Services

Founded in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, Hezbollah has become predominant in all Shiite Muslim areas of Lebanon, while its key religious and financial institutions are based in Beirut’s southern suburbs.

The movement runs an extensive social services network, complete with schools, hospitals, emergency responders and a wide range of charitable organisations serving its supporters.

Its trademark yellow flags and huge portraits of Nasrallah, along with pictures of dead commanders, fighters and “axis of resistance” figures, adorn areas of the country where it is popular.

The United States has considered Hezbollah a “terrorist” organisation for years, blaming it for a series of bombings and hijackings in the 1980s, including one targeting US Marines in Beirut. The European Union applies the classification to the group’s armed wing.

In 2022, a UN-backed court sentenced two Hezbollah members in absentia to life imprisonment for a huge Beirut bombing in 2005 that killed Lebanon’s former premier Rafic Hariri.

With the Gaza conflict still raging in its eighth month, Iran-backed Lebanese outfit Hezbollah is reportedly preparing for a surprise attack on Israel. The group’s secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah has warned Israel to be ready for surprises in a televised speech.

“You must expect surprises from our resistance,” he said on Friday, which marks the 24th anniversary of Resistance and Liberation Day.

Hezbollah, which emerged as a strong force during the Lebanon civil war, had been engaged in fighting Israel in a show of support for the Palestinian cause and Gaza.

Israel has been conducting a military offensive in Gaza since the October 7 attack by the Palestinian Hamas group left over a thousand dead in bordering Israeli towns.

But Israel’s own leaders have admitted they did not achieve any of its goals in the Gaza war, asserted Nasrallah. He was referring to Israeli National Security Council head Tzachi Hanegbi’s admission that they have not achieved any of the strategic goals and it may take years.

Nasrallah also listed the setbacks for Israel, which is backed by the West.

“The recognition of the Palestinian state by a number of European countries is a great loss for the occupation,” Middle East Monitor cited him as saying.

This recognition, he said, was one of the results of the “Al-Aqsa Flood battle”, the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel.

“One of the results of the Al-Aqsa Flood and the steadfastness of the resistance is that today Israel is appearing before the ICC (International Criminal Court),” he said.

Nasrallah accused Israel of not respecting international resolutions and launching violent raids on Rafah despite the International Court of Justice (ICJ) order to immediately halt its military offensive.

Hanegbi, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s top aide, had said after the ICJ ruling that his country has the right to defend itself.

Lebanon’s Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah meets Jihad Secretary General Ziyad al-Nakhalah and deputy leader of Hamas, Sheikh Saleh al-Arouri at an unidentified location in this handout image released on October 25, 2023.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

“Senior officials of Palestinian militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad have held talks with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah about achieving “real victory” in their war with Israel,” the Lebanese group said on October 25.

The Hezbollah statement did not specify when or where Nasrallah met with Hamas number two Saleh al-Aruri and Islamic Jihad leader Ziad Nakhaleh beyong saying that it was at a undisclosed location in Lebanon.

News of the meeting comes as Hezbollah and allied Palestinian factions exchange daily fire with the Israeli Army across the Lebanon-Israel border, raising fears of a new front in Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza.

Israel-Hamas war, Day 19 LIVE updates

The three groups are part of the “axis of resistance” — Palestinian, Lebanese, Syrian and other Iran-backed armed groups opposed to Israel.

They discussed what “the axis of resistance must do at this critical stage to achieve real victory… in Gaza and Palestine and stop” Israel’s “brutal aggression”, the statement said.

They also discussed “recent events in the Gaza Strip since the start of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood” — the unprecedented October 7 Hamas attack that killed more than 1,400 people, mostly civilians, in Israel.

The Health Ministry in Hamas-controlled Gaza says 5,791 people have been killed, again mostly civilians, as Israel has bombarded the territory. Hassan Nasrallah and the Palestinian militant leaders “agreed to keep coordinating and daily following up on developments,” the statement added.

Hezbollah and Hamas have long been part of a “joint operations room” with the Quds Force — the foreign operations arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards — a source close to Hezbollah previously told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Editorial | Endless woes: On the Israel-Hamas conflict and Palestine

“The meeting also touched upon the cross-border fire on the Lebanon-Israel border,” the statement said.

At least 52 people have been killed in Lebanon according to an AFP tally, mostly Hezbollah combatants but also four civilians, including Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah. Four people have been killed in Israel, including one civilian.