On Saturday morning (October 7), the Palestinian militant group Hamas launched a devastating attack on Israel that has led to the deaths of at least 300 people, according to Israeli media reports as of Sunday. In the Gaza Strip, the coastal Palestinian region from where Hamas fighters crossed over to the bordering Israel, around 250 people have died.
The attack is being seen as the biggest exchange of fire between the two parties in decades. Israel has now declared war, raising global concerns for an already volatile region of the world that has been beset by decades of regional, sectarian and communal rivalries, and intervention from foreign powers.
A major factor in this conflict could be the presence of Shiite Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. It said in a statement on Sunday that it fired at Israeli positions in the disputed Chebaa Farms, located along the border with Syria’s Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, using “large numbers of rockets and shells”. It also declared its solidarity with the “Palestinian resistance.” What exactly is this group?
Who are Hezbollah and how was the group founded?
Hezbollah, whose name means ‘Party of God’, is a Shiite Islamic militant organisation from Lebanon. The think tank Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) has described it as “The world’s most heavily armed non-state actor, with a large and diverse stockpile of unguided artillery rockets, as well as ballistic, antiair, antitank, and antiship missiles.”
In modern history, Lebanon was under a French mandate until 1943 and after it ended, power was divided into various religious groups, with posts such as Prime Minister and President of the country reserved for people of particular religious denominations.
Hezbollah originated during the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990), which was a result of “long-simmering discontent over the large, armed Palestinian presence in the country”, according to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).
Amid tense ethnic and religious divisions, Palestinian refugees’ arrival from 1948 onwards – with the creation of Israel as a state for Jewish people – added to the tensions. Their presence also led to Israeli forces invading southern Lebanon in 1978 and again in 1982 to expel Palestinian guerrilla fighters.
Map of the Occupied Palestinian Territories (West Bank and Gaza Strip), marked by the Green Line. Based on Reference Map: occupied Palestinian territory: Overview Map, as of December 2011. Published by United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. (Via Wikimedia Commons)
This would lead to the formation of Hezbollah, which was also inspired by the formation of a theocratic Islamic government in Iran in 1979. “Iran and its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) provided funds and training to the budding militia,” CFR notes. Therefore, it also reflects West Asia’s two major powers and their rivalry – the Sunni Muslim-dominated Saudi Arabia and the majority Shia Muslim-dominated Iran. The US estimates that Iran supplies hundreds of millions of dollars in funding to Hezbollah and that it has thousands of fighters.
What are Hezbollah’s aims?
It opposes Israel and Western influence in West Asia. It has also, along with Russia and Iran, supported the regime of President Bashar al-Assad in neighbouring Syria during its civil war.
It became more visible in Lebanese politics in the mid-2000s and currently holds 13 of the country’s 128-member Parliament. Along with allies, it is part of the ruling government. But in recent years, there have been protests against its work in the country with worsening issues of unemployment, government debt and poverty.
What are Hezbollah’s military capabilities?
Hezbollah has undertaken targeted attacks, such as a 1983 suicide bombing of barracks housing US and French troops in Lebanon’s capital Beirut, in which more than three hundred people died. Many Western governments characterise it as a terrorist organisation, as does the Gulf Cooperation Council, which includes six West Asian countries: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and UAE.
Israel and Hezbollah first fought a war in 2006 over a month and have often exchanged fire. According to CSIS, “The party’s arsenal is comprised primarily of small, man-portable, unguided artillery rockets. Although these devices lack precision, their sheer number make them effective weapons of terror.” Israeli estimates peg the number at 15,000 rockets and missiles on the eve of the 2006 war. “Hezbollah has since expanded its rocket force, today estimated at 130,000 rounds,” it added.
Why is there worry over Hezbollah potentially escalating the conflict?
For one, the Benjamin Netanyahu-led right-wing government in Israel has raised the matter of national security in the past too, and is now under criticism for being caught unaware by a far inferior force in terms of military and intelligence capabilities. The government is likely to double down in its response.
It has also been backed by governments in the West. United States and US President Joe Biden said his administration’s support for Israel’s security “is rock solid and unwavering.”
According to a Reuters analysis, the motivations of Hamas are related to it opposing the greater engagements between Israel and other West Asian governments in recent years – a significant development considering the fact that most of them lacked diplomatic relations with Israel. It has these goals in common with Hezbollah, which is much better equipped to fight.
“All the agreements of normalisation that you (Arab states) signed with (Israel) will not end this conflict,” Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of Hamas which runs Gaza, said on Al Jazeera television. A regional source told Reuters: “This is a message to Saudi Arabia, which is crawling towards Israel, and to the Americans who are supporting normalisation and supporting Israel. There is no security in the whole region as long as Palestinians are left outside of the equation.”
Hamas’s attack also follows “months of rising violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, with stepped-up Israeli raids, Palestinian street attacks and assaults by Jewish settlers on Palestinian villages,” the report added.
Laura Blumenfeld, a Middle East analyst at the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies in Washington, told Reuters: “As Hamas watched the Israelis and Saudis move close to an agreement, they decided: no seat at the table? Poison the meal,” she said.
Iran called Saturday’s attack an act of self-defence by Palestinians. Yahya Rahim Safavi, adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Tehran would stand by the Palestinian fighters “until the liberation of Palestine and Jerusalem.”
According to AP, the leader of Hamas’ military wing, Mohammed Deif, said the attack was only the start of what he called “Operation Al-Aqsa Storm,” and called on Palestinians from east Jerusalem to northern Israel to join the fight.
A Hezbollah supporter holds up a poster of the late Hezbollah military commander Imad Mughniyeh, as others wave the group's and Palestinian flags during a rally in celebration of the attacks that the militant Hamas group carried out against Israel, in Dahiyeh, Lebanon, Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein) 
Map of the Occupied Palestinian Territories (West Bank and Gaza Strip), marked by the Green Line. Based on Reference Map: occupied Palestinian territory: Overview Map, as of December 2011. Published by United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. (Via Wikimedia Commons)
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