What Is Hezbollah? | Council on Foreign Relations https://www.cfr.
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Backgrounder
What Is Hezbollah?
The Iran-backed Shiite militia was considered the most powerful non-state group in the Middle
East, but an Israeli military campaign against Hezbollah in 2024 has considerably weakened it.
WRITTEN BY
CFR.org Editors
UPDATED
Last updated October 29, 2024 9:00 am (EST)
Summary
Hezbollah wields significant power in Lebanon, where it operates as both a Shiite Muslim political
party and militant group.
It violently opposes Israel and Western powers operating in the Middle East, and it functions as a
proxy of Iran, its largest benefactor.
Israel’s killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in September 2024 has dealt the militant
group a severe blow.
Introduction
Hezbollah is a Shiite Muslim political party and militant group based in Lebanon, where it has
fostered a reputation as “a state within a state.” Founded during the chaos of the fifteen-year
Lebanese Civil War (1975–1990), the Iran-backed group is driven by its violent opposition to
Israel and its resistance to Western influence in the Middle East.
Hezbollah is considered a terrorist organization by the United States and many other countries,
and has deep-rooted military alliances with repressive, anti-Israel regimes in Iran and Syria.
Cross-border clashes between Hezbollah and Israel escalated in recent years, particularly amid
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Israel’s ongoing war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip that broke out last year. In a major
intensification of its battle with Hezbollah, in late 2024 Israel killed longtime leader Hassan
Nasrallah, and launched a ground offensive against the group in southern Lebanon.
Milestones in Hezbollah’s History
1943: After twenty-three years as a French
mandate, Lebanon gains independence. Its
new leaders sign the National Pact, which 1970
creates a government system dividing 1971: The Palestine Liberation Organization
power among the major religious groups. (PLO) relocates its headquarters from
Jordan to Lebanon.
1983: In April, Beirut’s U.S. embassy is
1975–1990: Lebanon’s civil war rages as the 1980 bombed, killing 63 people. In October,
country’s religious, political, and ethnic suicide attacks on barracks housing U.S.
sects vie for control, leading to invasions and French troops kill 305 people. A U.S.
by Israel and Syria and the involvement of 1984:
court A car bombing
decides attributed
Hezbollah is behindto the
the United States and other Western Hezbollah
attacks. kills dozens of people at the
forces, as well as the United Nations. 1985: Hezbollah
U.S. embassy releases
annex its first manifesto.
in Beirut.
1992: In March, the Israeli embassy in 1989: Lebanon’s parliamentarians meet in
Buenos Aires is bombed in an attack 1990
Taif, Saudi Arabia, and sign an agreement
attributed to Hezbollah. Later this year, to end the civil war and grant Syria
Hassan Nasrallah becomes Hezbollah’s guardianship over Lebanon. The
secretary-general after Israeli forces 1994: Car bombings
agreement at Israel’s
also orders London
all militias except
assassinate his predecessor. Hezbollah embassy and atoBuenos
for Hezbollah disarm.Aires Jewish
1997: The United
wins eight seats inStates designates
Parliament after community center are attributed to
Hezbollah a foreign
participating terrorist
in national organization.
elections for the Hezbollah.
2000
first time.
2005: Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri
2006: Hezbollah abducts two Israeli is assassinated. His death, attributed to
soldiers, sparking a monthlong war with Syria, kick-starts the Cedar Revolution. A
Israel that leaves more than one thousand UN tribunal later implicates Hezbollah in
2010 2009: Hezbollah releases an updated
Lebanese and fifty Israelis dead. Hariri’s death.
2011: Syria descends into civil war. manifesto that expresses more openness
Hezbollah eventually sends thousands to theAdemocratic
2012: process.
suicide bombing targeting a bus
of fighters to support Bashar al-Assad’s carrying Israeli tourists in Bulgaria kills six
2013: The EU designates Hezbollah’s
regime. people. The European Union blames
armed wing a terrorist organization after Hezbollah.
2018: Israel discovers miles of tunnels into
considerable debate among the bloc’s
2019: Economic woes trigger mass Israel from southern Lebanon that it says
members. 2020
protests calling for the political elite, belong to Hezbollah.
2020: Hezbollah vows revenge after a U.S.
including Hezbollah, to give up power. drone strike kills Iranian Quds Force
2023:
PrimeHezbollah launches
Minister Saad Haririattacks
resigns.across commander Qasem Solemaini. Later this
the Israel-Lebanon border in a show of year, a top judge begins investigating
support for Palestinians amid the Israel- officials tied to Hezbollah in relation to
Hamas war in the Gaza Strip. Hezbollah explosions at a Beirut port that kill
and Israel trade attacks at the border well hundreds.
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Source: CFR research.
How did Hezbollah originate?
Hezbollah emerged during Lebanon’s civil war, which broke out in 1975 when long-simmering
discontent over the large, armed Palestinian presence in the country reached a boiling point.
Various Lebanese sectarian communities held different positions on the nature of the
Palestinian challenge.
Under a 1943 political agreement, political power is divided among Lebanon’s predominant
religious groups—a Sunni Muslim serves as prime minister, a Maronite Christian as president,
and a Shiite Muslim as the speaker of Parliament. Tensions among these groups evolved into
civil war as several factors upset the delicate balance. The Sunni population had grown with the
arrival of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, while Shiites felt increasingly marginalized by the
ruling Christian minority. Amid the infighting, Israeli forces invaded southern Lebanon in 1978
and again in 1982 to expel Palestinian guerrilla fighters that used the region as their base to
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attack Israel.
A group of Shiites influenced by the theocratic government in Iran—the region’s major Shiite
government, which came to power in 1979—took up arms against the Israeli occupation. Seeing
an opportunity to expand its influence in Arab states, Iran and its Islamic Revolutionary Guard
Corps (IRGC) provided funds and training to the budding militia, which adopted the name
Hezbollah, meaning “The Party of God.” It earned a reputation for extremist militancy due to
its frequent clashes with rival Shiite militias, such as the Amal Movement, and its attacks on
foreign targets, including the 1983 suicide bombing of barracks housing U.S. and French troops
in Beirut, in which more than three hundred people died. Hezbollah became a vital asset to
Iran, bridging Shiite Arab-Persian divides as Tehran established proxies throughout the Middle
East.
Hezbollah bills itself as a Shiite resistance movement, and it enshrined its ideology in a 1985
manifesto that vowed to expel Western powers from Lebanon, called for the destruction of the
Israeli state, and pledged allegiance to Iran’s supreme leader. It also advocated an Iran-inspired
Islamist regime, but emphasized that the Lebanese people should have the freedom of self-
determination.
Who was Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah?
Hassan Nasrallah helped found Hezbollah in the early 1980s and led the group for more than
thirty years, until he was killed by an Israeli air strike in September 2024. Many Middle East
experts credit the Beirut-born Shia cleric with molding Hezbollah into the most formidable
non-state fighting force in the region, and Iran’s most powerful anti-Israel proxy.
“Among Nasrallah’s most important achievements was enmeshing Israel in an enervating war
that in May 2000 prompted the unilateral withdrawal of Israeli forces from south Lebanon,
ending its eighteen-year-long occupation,” says CFR Senior Fellow Bruce Hoffman.
“Thereafter, Hezbollah effectively supplanted the Lebanese Army as the country’s only truly
effective military force. Moreover, Nasrallah’s commanding authority and popularity among
most Lebanese—Sunni, Christian, and Shi’a alike—was cemented.
As leader, Nasrallah oversaw the seven-member Shura Council and its five subcouncils: the
political assembly, the jihad assembly (military body), the parliamentary assembly, the
executive assembly, and the judicial assembly. “Nasrallah’s death is a crushing blow,” writes
Hoffman, “there are no clear successors to Nasrallah given his unique and unrivaled stature at
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