As the Israel-Hamas war mounts, you might have heard about evacuations from Israel's northern border towns. Israel's neighbor to the north, Lebanon, is home to Hezbollah, a Shia Islamist political militant group and longtime Israeli foe, and many are nervously watching for the potential of whether Hezbollah will jump into the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Founded in 1982 during Lebanon's brutal civil war, the group provided a lot of things for its constituency in southern Lebanon — community centers, religious celebrations, and the like — that the state could not. It has strong political and financial ties to Iran, the major power in Shia Islam, and undertook terror attacks against Israeli and allied targets in Lebanon over several decades.
Perhaps its most significant conflict with Israel came in 2006, when Hezbollah launched rockets into Israeli territory, to which the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) responded with airstrikes and artillery fire. The result was a 34-day-long war, which resulted in around a thousand Lebanese casualties. Since then, Hezbollah has become one of the largest militant groups in the Middle East. It's well-equipped, well-trained, and well-funded.
It's also a political faction, with some representation in Lebanon's parliament (though in last year's elections Hezbollah and its allies lost their majority). The United States considers Hezbollah to be a terrorist organization.
Right now, Israel doesn't want to stretch its capacities or risk a region-wide war, but the odds of escalation with Hezbollah are higher than they have been in some time. While Hamas claims that Hezbollah wasn't involved in the October 7 attacks, Israel continues to play defense and offense to its north out of concerns of a potential move on Hezbollah's part.
I spoke with Vox foreign policy reporter Ellen Ioanes to get a little more info on the militant group.
Izzie: Hezbollah lost to Israel back in 2006 — why would it want to risk getting involved in another war?
Ellen: Hezbollah actually sees Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2006 as a victory, even if it's an ambiguous one. They really lean on this "victory" as a propaganda instrument, which you can see at their "museum of resistance" in Mlita, in southern Lebanon. It did win them some political power in Lebanon, especially as the Lebanese army and the state overall were seen as pretty useless. So that fight was effective internally in the past.
The other thing to note is that Hezbollah is a close ally of Iran and is heavily funded by Iran, so any involvement with the current war between Israel and Hamas would be in coordination with Iran. The Islamic Republic might not get directly involved in the war but proxy groups like Hezbollah or certain groups in Syria and Iraq could participate in their own ways.
Izzie: So there's a lot of talk about "clashes" to Israel's north. What does that mean?
Ellen: Southern Lebanon is Hezbollah's main area of operation, but there are also other Palestinian armed groups that operate in that region and could launch attacks into northern Israel from there. There are also UN peacekeeping troops there (UNIFIL) that support the Lebanese army and try to monitor and minimize hostilities. There is sometimes low-level conflict in that area — a rocket fired here or there — but recently the UNIFIL headquarters itself was hit.
Increased hostile activities could certainly run the risk of widening the conflict beyond Gaza. I'm not sure the Lebanese state (such as it is) would get involved because it simply lacks the capacity for a war but certainly Hezbollah could launch larger operations.
Izzie: What exactly is Hezbollah's relationship with Hamas?
Ellen: Hezbollah and Hamas both benefit to a greater or lesser extent from Iranian assistance. The way Ali Vaez, director of the Iran program at the International Crisis Group, explained it to me was that Hezbollah and Iran are in lock-step, like NATO allies. Hamas benefits from Iran's financial support like Hezbollah does, but it's not as closely tied to Iran.
Hezbollah, like Iran, also helps train Hamas fighters and provides other material support and was also very supportive of Hamas's October 7 attacks on Israelis. But if Hezbollah were to get involved in this war, I think it would be less directly in support of Hamas and more as another front to the war and in concert with Iran.
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