Why Lebanon is a party in Israel-Hezbollah conflict

Once called “Switzerland of the East”, Lebanon is now a country in crisis — about 500 people died in Israeli attacks on Monday in what is understood to be the biggest pounding by the Israeli forces since the 2006 war.  

Lebanon has not had a president since 2022, when Michel Aoun quit. It has a caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, who had refused to take the presidential role after Aoun quit and who positions himself as a “liberal” leader but has little or no control over Hezbollah, literally meaning the “Party of God”. Its economy has practically collapsed, citizens generally don’t have access to banks and its constitution does not allow its people to elect its president if the parliament fails to do so. And the country is facing Israeli wrath over its tussle with Hezbollah.

Civil war has been a feature of Lebanon for decades. One such civil war ended after the Taif agreement was signed in 1989. The agreement distributed power among different communities on religious basis — for example, the president of the republic would be a Maronite Christian, the prime minister a Sunni, and the speaker of parliament a Shia.

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With the new power structure in place, Lebanon’s parliament, the National Assembly, dissolved all militias, except for the powerful Shia group Hezbollah, in the early 1990s. As the focus of the war in West Asia shifts from Palestinian territory Gaza to Lebanon, Hezbollah comes into a sharp focus.  

What’s Hezbollah doing in Lebanon?

Hezbollah didn’t emerge in Lebanon, which was part of the Ottoman Empire — from the early 16th century until the First World War after which it passed on to France as a protected territory and got its independence in 1944. But it faced military invasions and civil wars, mostly as a playground for Israel-Palestine-Arab conflict.  

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A civil war broke out in 1958. In 1967, Lebanon came on Israel’s target during its war with the Arab nations as Palestinian groups used the land to launch attacks on the Jewish state. In 1975, sectarian violence between christians and muslims snowballed into a civil war that ended in 1990, with the signing of the Taif agreement.

It was during this civil war that Iran founded Hezbollah — the Party of God — in 1982, three years after the Islamic revolution in what was earlier known as Persia. It was also a response to Israel’s invasion of South Lebanon in 1978 and founding a christian militia there, following a terror attack by a Palestinian group.  

Israel returned in 1982 with a full-scale invasion after its ambassador to the UK was targeted by a Palestinian group, and the assassination by pro-Israel Lebanon president-elect Bachir Gemayel. This invasion shaped Hezbollah’s future. It has led attacks on Israeli and Western forces in the region since then.

Today Hezbollah is a state-within-state in Lebanon.

Hezbollah, the political power and a rival

Hezbollah has contested all elections in Lebanon since 1992. Currently, Hezbollah has ministers in the caretaker Lebanese government and lawmakers in its parliament. It holds the ministry of public works and the ministry of labour.  

Though the West and much of the world recognise Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation, it is officially a political party in Lebanon and has often formed coalitions with other political parties, including Christian ones, under power-sharing agreements.

In the last parliamentary election held in 2022, the Hezbollah-backed coalition though lost its majority in the 121-member house, it retained enough power to block the election of a president after ally Aoun resigned. PM Miktati has practically no control over Hezbollah.

It has kept the powerful Hariri family — of former premier Rafik Hariri, whose son Saad Hariri boycotted the 2022 election — out of power. Hezbollah claimed credit and gained popular support after Israel withdrew from Lebanon in 2006.

Strong backing and supplies from Iran and Syria has played a far greater role in the Lebanon state that it could have on its own. Hezbollah has its own army — distinct from Lebanon’s national army. It is commonly held that Hezbollah can easily take over Lebanon by military force, defeating the national army.

So, why has Hezbollah not seized Lebanon?

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah claims to have over 100,000 fighters at his command. However, independent Hezbollah watchers estimate that the militia group may have up to 50,000 fighters. But a significant number of them are said to be battle-hardened, having fought in the Syrian civil war. This gives them an advantage over the official forces.  

The group is also estimated to have up to 200,000 rockets and missiles. Though its arsenal comprises small, unguided, surface-to-surface artillery rockets, the group is also said to have anti-aircraft and anti-ship missiles. Some of its missiles are guided ones, capable of striking deep inside Israel. It definitely has more sophisticated weapons than Hamas has at its disposal.

However, Hezbollah has resisted the obvious temptation of capturing power in Lebanon by military force. This gives it a strategic advantage as it continues to cooperate with Iran and Syria at all levels to the extent that it is said to be obeying the command from Tehran and not Beirut.

If Hezbollah follows the Taliban model and captures Lebanon the way its counterpart did in Afghanistan, it would involve Lebanon as a party. Right now, it can use Lebanon to defend its case at international fora, without facing the risk of being sanctioned.

Also, staying as a separate armed group that fights wars with Israel shields Lebanon’s army, whose personnel are not trained in guerilla warfare that Hezbollah has mastered.

Why is Hezbollah fighting Hamas’s war?

Through the common master Iran and common enemy Israel, Shia militia Hezbollah and Sunni group Hamas have forged a close relationship. Both have their key planning offices in Tehran, with a number of top leaders having residences in Iran.  

After the October 7 raids that Hamas fighters carried out in Israel killing around 1,200 and abducting over 250, Israeli forces launched a ground invasion of Gaza and in retaliation, Hezbollah declared its solidarity with Palestine by firing at Israeli positions.

Hezbollah says it has fired more than 8,000 rockets and anti-tank missiles at Israeli positions, with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) retaliating through air strikes and artillery fire in Lebanon. Before Monday’s two waves of Israeli attacks, Lebanon’s health ministry put the death toll at 589 since October 2023. On Monday, at least 274 more people were killed in a massive Israeli attack, which followed synchronised explosions in communication devices — pagers and walkie talkies last week. About 200,000 people have also been displaced along the Israel-Lebanon border.  

The growing hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah has made the whole of Lebanon vulnerable, with the international community warning that if attacks are not curbed immediately, it would spill over to other nations in West Asia and that such a wider conflict may spiral out of control. While Israel aims to punish Hezbollah, Lebanon can’t defend or dissociate itself from the conflict even if Hezbollah and Lebanon may not be synonymous.