Updated
Aug 25, 2024, 04:42 PM
Published
Aug 25, 2024, 04:30 PM
NEW YORK – Since a new war broke out between Israel and the militant Palestinian group Hamas on Oct 7, the Lebanese militia Hezbollah has expressed solidarity with Hamas 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.
Now, an escalation of the fighting appears to have edged the two sides closer to all-out war. In addition, Hezbollah has threatened to bring the nearby island nation of Cyprus, where Israeli soldiers have trained, into the hostilities. Yet both Israel and Hezbollah have reasons to avoid a full-blown conflict.
Shi’ite 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 Shi’ite-majority Iran, and Hezbollah is heavily influenced by Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Shi’ite Muslims and Sunni Muslims each comprise about 30 per cent 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.
On April 13, while Iran conducted an unprecedented aerial bombardment of Israel, Hezbollah launched its own barrage, further testing Israel’s air defences. Like Hamas, Hezbollah is designated by the US as a terrorist organisation. 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 organisational 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 battletested 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 Gaza 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 before 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 material 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 Shi’ite Amal Movement, headed by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, ensures that together they represent most of the country’s Shi’ite 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 has been viewed by many Sunni Muslims as a Shi’ite group doing Iran’s bidding in the region.
Why did Hezbollah threaten Cyprus?
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah warned in mid-June that Cyprus, an island nation in the eastern Mediterranean that’s a member of the European Union, would become “part of the war” if it permitted Israel to use its territory to target Lebanon.
Cyprus has a defence cooperation agreement with Israel, as it does with a number of other countries, including Lebanon. Israeli forces have conducted training operations in Cyprus in cooperation with the country’s forces. The office of Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides said on social media that Cyprus “has never facilitated and will not facilitate any aggressive action or attack against any country”.
Will Hezbollah and Israel advance to full-scale war?
The mid-year escalation points in that direction. At the same time, both sides, as well as Iran, have incentives to avoid all-out war. 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.
For Israel, a new conflagration with Hezbollah would mean fighting a two-front war. Already, the campaign against Hamas in Gaza is straining the country. It comes 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 lives 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. BLOOMBERG