Three days after the US and Israel launched joint strikes on Iran, Hezbollah has now joined the fight.
The group launched a rocket and drone attack against a military base in Haifa, northern Israel, earlier today, spreading the conflict even further.
Hezbollah said the strike was in retaliation for the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader for nearly 4 many years.
Israeli jets hit back by bombing Lebanon’s capital, Beirut, killing 31 people and injuring 149, in addition to no less than 17 other southern towns.
Defence Minister Israel Katz said Hezbollah would pay a ‘heavy price’ for firing at Israel.
But what exactly is Hezbollah, and why has it got involved within the conflict?
Metro spoke with Professor Andrew Moran, an expert in US foreign policy and security, on the London Metropolitan University, to search out out.
Where is Hezbollah positioned? Its origins and military power
Hezbollah, Arabic for ‘Party of God’, is a Shi’ite Muslim militant group formed within the Nineteen Eighties by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and backed by Tehran.
It aimed to fight Israeli forces who were occupying southern Lebanon during Lebanon’s lengthy civil war.
Enlisting people from the Shi’ite communities in Lebanon, it launched into years of guerrilla warfare before Israel finally left the country in 2000.
Hezbollah’s military might grew, and in 2006 they crossed into Israel and kidnapped two soldiers and killed others, prompting a five-week war.
In the course of the conflict Hezbollah fired hundreds of rockets into Israel, but Lebanon lost way more people, with 1,200 dying, in comparison with 158 Israelis, who were mostly soldiers.
Hezbollah’s military power increased much more after invading Syria in 2012 to assist President Bashar al-Assad fight mostly Sunni rebels.
It boasts around 20,000 to 30,000 fighters – Hezbollah takes many steps to maintain fighter identities a secret – as well 10s of hundreds of rockets.
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Its military wing elbowed into Israel’s war against Hamas, which controls the Palestinian territory of Gaza, just sooner or later after the October 7 attacks.
‘Israel’s response resulted in a ground war in Southern Lebanon, with over 4,000 dead, and over one million displaced,’ said Professor Moran.
‘There was an uneasy truce for various months, but this has now ended.’
Israel had killed a lot of the group’s military and political leaders and has continued to perform near-daily strikes on Lebanon since.
Who’s the Hezbollah leader?
After Israel assassinated Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah appointed Naim Qassem as its secretary-general. Qassem is a veteran his political activist and has been a part of the group since 1991.
Hezbollah entered politics in 2005 after ally Syria withdrew from Lebanon following the killing of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, who symbolised Saudi influence in Lebanon.
Members of its political wing, the Loyalty to the Resistance Bloc, shore up support from Shi’ites who see the group as defending the country from Israel.
They lost their majority in 2022, however the group continued to exercise a giant sway, given its immense military power.
Professor Moran says: ‘Many in the federal government of Lebanon don’t want Hezbollah of their country, where they’re based, and have asked it to not perform military actions.’
What’s Hezbollah doing now? Why are they involved within the Iran war?
Projectiles were launched from Lebanon into Israel overnight, causing no deaths or injuries, in an attack Hezbollah took responsibility for.
The group said: ‘The resistance leadership has all the time affirmed that the continuation of Israeli aggression and the assassination of our leaders, youth and folks gives us the precise to defend ourselves and respond at the suitable time and place.
‘The Israeli enemy cannot proceed its 15-month-long aggression with no warning response to halt this aggression and withdraw from the occupied Lebanese territories.’
Lebanon’s prime minister, Nawaf Salam, distanced himself from Hezbollah, calling the attacks ‘irresponsible’.
Without naming Hezbollah, he said: ‘We is not going to allow the country to be dragged into latest adventures.’
Hezbollah joining the battle was largely to be expected, Professor Moran says.
‘More worryingly for Hezbollah is the incontrovertible fact that they’ll find it harder to proceed if the leadership in Iran collapses and is replaced by a more outward-looking, and fewer ideological, government which seeks to cut back its links to terrorist groups across the Middle East,’ he says.
‘As such, the conflict poses an existential threat to the existence of Hezbollah because it finds itself fighting for its own survival.’
Israel countered by pounding a residential area and Hezbollah stronghold on the outskirts of Beirut within the early hours, Dahiya, this morning.
Not less than 20 in Beirut’s flattened suburbs were killed, while 11 died in strikes on southern Lebanon, in keeping with the information ministry.
Terrorist designations
Western countries including the US designate Hezbollah a terrorist organisation.
So do US-allied Gulf Arab states including Saudi Arabia. The European Union classifies Hezbollah’s military wing as a terrorist group, but not its political wing.
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