It emerged from the ruins of Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, when Israeli forces captured nearly half of Lebanese territory. The region includes Beirut, where Israeli forces, along with right-wing Christian Lebanese militias aligned with Israel, have cordoned off the western part of the capital to drive out Palestinian militants.
Hezbollah is an Islamic movement backed by Iran and one of the most powerful paramilitary forces in the Middle East. The group, with its main base on the border between Israel and Lebanon, could become a dangerous actor in the war between Hamas and Israel and trigger a wider regional conflict.
The conflict, which began with Hamas’ deadly attacks on Israel – which have killed 1,400 people, according to Israeli officials – has already had wider ramifications in the Middle East and sparked diplomatic divisions and protests around the world.
Since October 7, Israeli attacks on Gaza have killed more than five thousand people, according to Palestinian health officials.
The consequences are evident on the border between Lebanon and Israel, where Hezbollah and Israel have engaged in low-level skirmishes since the start of the war, keeping the entire region on edge.
Here’s what else to know about Hezbollah.
Appearance of the group
Hezbollah emerged from the ruins of Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, when Israeli forces captured nearly half of Lebanon’s territory. The territory includes Beirut, where Israeli forces, along with right-wing Lebanese Christian militias aligned with Israel, have encircled the western part of the capital to drive out Palestinian militants.
According to current reports the Israeli operation caused more than 17,000 deaths and the Israeli investigation into the massacre at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Beirut was one of the bloodiest events in the region’s recent history. The inquiry, known as the Kahan Commission of Inquiry, found Israel indirectly responsible for the massacre, which was carried out by right-wing Lebanese Christian militias.
The death toll in Sabra and Shatila varies from 700 to 3,000.
Hezbollah supporters raise their fists to salute party leader Hassan Nasrallah in May 2023. Marwan Namani/Image Alliance/Getty Images
As large numbers of Palestinian militants fled Lebanon, a group of Shiite Islamist militias trained by the new Islamic Republic of Iran erupted into Lebanon’s fragile political landscape. A group of ragamuffins had a violent and uneven impact. In 1983, two suicide bombers associated with the unit attacked US Marines in Beirut, killing about 300 American and French soldiers and some civilians.
A year later, militants linked to Iran bombed the US embassy in Beirut, killing 23 people. In 1985, these fighters formally united around a newly founded organization: Hezbollah.
The group has made no secret of its ideological allegiance to Tehran and has received a steady stream of funding from the Islamic Republic. This fact helped make Hezbollah popular. He participated in the Lebanese Civil War that ended in 1990, and led the struggle against Israeli forces occupying southern Lebanon, eventually ousting them in 2000.
A terrorist name
In Lebanon, Hezbollah is officially considered an “opposition” group tasked with standing up to Israel, which Beirut classifies as an enemy state. Although much of the Western world considers Hezbollah a terrorist organization, Argentina claimed responsibility for the 1992 attack on the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires that killed 29 people and the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center that killed 85 people. People, even in the capital.
Both Iran and Hezbollah have denied responsibility for the attacks.
In 2011, the pro-democracy protests of the Arab Spring turned into proxy wars that spread across much of the Middle East. Hezbollah has actively participated in fighting alongside Iranian-aligned forces in Syria and Iraq. After a while, it was also considered a terrorist organization by many Arab countries.
But this did not affect the authority of the group in the slightest. During the years of proxy wars, the group experienced a meteoric rise, evolving from rebel guerrillas into a regional fighting force.
Women show pictures of late Hezbollah commander Mustafa Badreddine during a ceremony in Beirut on May 12. Marwan Namani/Image Alliance/Getty Images
How Hezbollah interacts with Hamas
Hezbollah and Hamas have not always gotten along. The two Islamist groups fought on opposite sides of the Syrian uprising that turned into a civil war, with Hezbollah fighting on behalf of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and Hamas fighters supporting the mainly Sunni opposition.
Hezbollah is a group from the Shia sect of Islam, while Hamas is Sunni.
When the war in Syria ended at the end of the last decade, Hamas and Hezbollah put aside their differences. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has repeatedly praised the growing alliance between the two groups.
Hamas leaders have met with Nasrallah several times over the past year, and the Gaza-based group’s deep ties to Tehran are widely known.
A group of Shiite Hezbollah and scouts with Lebanese flags during the holy day of Ashura, which celebrates the martyrdom of the Prophet’s grandson Hussein in the 6th century, on the outskirts of Beirut, August 9, 2022.
A growing and isolated regional power in its country
While Hezbollah fought in other countries, problems began to arise in its homeland, Lebanon. Repeated cycles of economic and political crises over the past two decades have damaged the group’s popularity outside its Shiite support base.
The group faced vast economic problems that proved intractable. He has served as a bulwark against Lebanese protests, demanding change from a political elite widely accused of corruption and sending supporters to beat peaceful protesters.
Hezbollah largely canceled a judicial inquiry into the August 2020 Beirut port explosion that devastated much of the city.
But this may be irrelevant to the group’s objectives. Hezbollah is undoubtedly Iran’s most effective non-state partner. As its regional influence expands, it may become a more formidable opponent to its long-time adversary, Israel.
People with Hezbollah flags during a rally in Baalbek, Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, in May 2022. Francesca Volpi/Getty Images
Why could Hezbollah get involved in the war between Hamas and Israel?
It remains unclear whether Hezbollah will intervene in the Hamas-Israel war on behalf of the Palestinians. On the one hand, it shares Hamas’ ultimate goal of destroying the Jewish state. On the other hand, Hezbollah has everything to lose.
Israel has the most sophisticated military in the Middle East, boasting some of the most advanced weaponry in the world with US backing. Also, its war prevention story with Gaza. Israel has killed more Gazans in response to Hamas’s large-scale and deadly terrorist attacks than in any other war with the besieged coastal region. It sent an ominous message to Lebanon, which is still recovering from a devastating economic crisis in 2019 that left much of the country in dire straits.
Israel may also be reluctant to try its luck with an Iranian-backed group. A war with Hezbollah in northern Israel could trigger a third war front in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, which separates Israel from Iranian-aligned forces, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. , an elite unit of the Iranian military.
While Hezbollah’s arsenal does not match Israel’s, it has more sophisticated precision-guided missiles than the Soviet-era missiles it used in its most recent conflict with Israel in 2006. More than 100,000 units, including active combatants and reservists.
If Hezbollah were to go to war, it would trigger a multi-front conflict and push the Middle East into uncharted territory with unpredictable consequences.