What is Hezbollah? Why has it come to aid of Palestinians in Israel conflict?

The conflict in Israel has seen Hezbollah come to the aid of the Palestinians. On Sunday, the group said it rained down “large numbers of artillery shells and guided missiles” on Israeli positions. “The Islamic resistance (Hezbollah)… attacked three positions of the Zionist enemy in the occupied Lebanese Shebaa farms…with large numbers of artillery shells and guided missiles,” the group said. Senior Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine said his group’s “guns and rockets” were with Palestinian militants. “Our history, our guns and our rockets are with you. Everything we have is with you,” Safieddine said at an event in the Hezbollah stronghold of Dahieh on Beirut’s outskirts in solidarity with the Palestinian fighters. But who are the Hezbollah, whose name means ‘party of god’? Why have they intervened on behalf of the Palestinians? Let’s take a closer look: What is Hezbollah? The Hezbollah is a Shiite militant group and a political outfit based in Lebanon led by Hassan Nasrallah. Hezbollah’s influence within the country is so vast and all-encompassing that the group is thought to be ‘a state within a state’, as per the Council for Foreign Relations. But before we examine Hezbollah, it is necessary to take a brief look at Lebanon. Lebanon was ruled by France until 1943. Since then, its power-sharing system mandates that a president come from the Maronite Catholic sect, the prime minister be a Sunni and the parliament speaker be a Shiite. Tensions between the three communities erupted into a civil war that began in 1975.

Hezbollah was founded in the summer of 1982 when Israel invaded Lebanon amidst the civil war.

Hezbollah’s stated goal was to expel Israel’s forces from Lebanon and establish an Islamic republic. The group took its inspiration – and much more – from the Islamic revolution in Shiite majority Iran. As the C_ouncil for Foreign Relations_ website notes, “Iran and its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) provided funds and training to the budding militia.” As per Britannica, it was originally located in Biqāʿ Valley, southern Lebanon, and southern Beirut – all predominantly Shiite areas. Sharing a Shiite Islamist ideology, Hezbollah recruited from among Lebanese Shiite Muslims. Many of these were the more radical members of the moderate and secular Amal movement, as per Britannica. [caption id=“attachment_13222912” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] A Hezbollah supporter holds up a portrait of Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah as others wave the group’s flag as well as those of Palestinian and Lebanon during a rally in solidarity with the Palestinian people in Gaza. AP[/caption] The group which began as a small, shadowy group of fighters has since spread its tentacles across the Arab world. It plays a key role in exporting Tehran’s influence. The United States estimates Iran has allocated it hundreds of millions of dollars annually in recent years. The Hezbollah is thought to be the largest and most heavily armed militant group in West Asia. It boasts of having 100,000 well-trained fighters. And now its leader says they have precision-guided missiles that can hit anywhere in Israel and prevent ships from reaching Israel’s Mediterranean coast, as well as advanced drones that can either strike or gather intelligence. Why have they come to the aid of the Palestinians? The group is characterised by its unyielding opposition to Israel – urged on by Tel Aviv’s great regional adversary Tehran – as well as Western influence in the region. Hezbollah has deep ties to other Iran-backed groups around the region, including the Palestinian factions Hamas and Islamic Jihad. As Saturday’s attack unfolded, Hezbollah said it was in “direct contact with the leadership of the Palestinian resistance”. Its leader Nasrallah earlier in October urged Muslims across the world to strongly condemn any step taken by any country toward normalization of relations with Israel. “Any country that moves toward normalization of its relations (with Israel) must be condemned, because this step amounts to abandoning Palestine and bolstering the (Zionist) enemy, which must not be tolerated,” the Hezbollah leader said. Nasrallah was referring to  efforts by the United States to persuade Saudi Arabia to normalise  relations with the Israeli regime. Its biggest achievement over the past 40 years was its guerrilla war against Israeli forces occupying parts of southern Lebanon. When Israel’s army was forced to withdraw in May 2000 — without a peace deal like the ones it reached with Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinians — the victory brought Hezbollah praise from around West Asia. Hezbollah fought Israel to a draw in a 34-day war in the summer of 2006. The result of this was that Hezbollah and Nasrallah were hailed as heroes in the Arab world, as per Britannica. In July 2008, Hezbollah returned bodies of abducted soldiers to Israel for five Lebanese prisoners and around 200 other bodies.

Israel today considers Hezbollah its most serious immediate threat.

It estimates that the militant group has some 150,000 rockets and missiles aimed at it. But since the withdrawal, the controversy over Hezbollah has steadily grown as its role has changed. Allegations of terrorism The United States, Saudi Arabia, and many other countries have designated Hezbollah as a ‘terrorist group’. The European Union classifies Hezbollah’s military wing as a terrorist group, but not its political wing. The group is thought to be responsible for a slew of terrorist attacks including the 1994 car bombings of a Jewish community center in Argentina that left 85 dead and the Israeli Embassy in London being bombed, as per CFR.“Hezbollah has evolved tremendously in the past four decades in its organizational structure, global reach, and regional involvements,” says West Asia analyst Joe Macaron. [caption id=“attachment_13222942” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Sunni and Shiite clerics stand for the Lebanese national anthem before Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah speaks via a video link during a ceremony marking Prophet Muhammad’s birthday, in the southern of Beirut, Lebanon. AP[/caption] Groups that Lebanese security officials and Western intelligence have said were linked to Hezbollah launched suicide attacks on Western embassies and targets and kidnapped Westerners in the 1980s. One group, Islamic Jihad, was thought to be led by Imad Moughniyah, a top Hezbollah commander who was killed in a car bomb in Syria in 2008. The United States holds Hezbollah responsible for a suicide bombing that destroyed U.S. Marine headquarters in Beirut in 1983, killing 241 servicemen, and a suicide bombing the same year on the US embassy. A suicide bombing also hit a French barracks in Beirut in 1983, killing 58 French paratroopers. Referring to those attacks and hostage-taking, Hezbollah leader Nasrallah said in a 2022 interview they were carried out by small groups not linked to Hezbollah. “Hezbollah has evolved tremendously in the past four decades in its organizational structure, global reach, and regional involvements,” says West Asia analyst Joe Macaron. Hezbollah within Lebanon Hezbollah’s sway in Lebanon is underpinned by its arsenal and the support of many Shi’ites who say the group defends Lebanon from Israel.

It has used its powerful support among the Shiite community and tough tactics to gain political dominance.

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In 2005, Lebanon’s former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, the most powerful Sunni politician in the country at the time, was killed in a massive truck bomb in Beirut. A UN-backed tribunal accused three Hezbollah members of being behind the assassination. Hezbollah denies the charges. Hezbollah was blamed for other assassinations that followed, mostly targeting Christians and Sunni Muslim politicians and intellectuals critical of the group. Hezbollah denies the accusations. In 2016, it secured the election of its Christian ally Michel Aoun as president, then it and its allies won a parliament majority in subsequent elections. But that also sealed its role as part of a governing system whose decades of corruption and mismanagement have been blamed for Lebanon’s economic collapse, starting in late 2019. With the currency crumbling and much of the population thrown into poverty, the political elite, which has been running Lebanon since the 1975-90 civil war ended, has resisted reforms. Massive protests demanding the removal of those politicians began in late 2019, and days afterward, hundreds of Hezbollah supporters attacked the protesters in downtown Beirut, forcing them to flee. Last October, Hezbollah supporters and a rival militia had an armed clash in Beirut over investigations into the 2020 devastating explosion at Beirut’s port. Its military power grew after deploying into Syria in 2012 to help President Bashar al-Assad fight mostly Sunni rebels. Backing Assad against opposition fighters, as well as against al-Qaida-linked fighters and the Islamic State group was perhaps the most controversial decision Hezbollah has made. The intervention “meant becoming entangled in the internal conflict of a neighbouring Arab country rather than fulfilling Hezbollah’s claimed mandate of resistance against Israel,” Macaron said. Across the Arab world, it cemented an image of Hezbollah as a sectarian Shiite force fighting mainly Sunni insurgents and spreading Iran’s power. Hezbollah was also accused of helping Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, leading at least six Arab countries to list the group as a terrorist organization. With inputs from agencies