The day after the 7 October 2023 attack on Israel, Hezbollah entered the conflict on what it described as grounds of solidarity with the Palestinian people, opening a front that ran parallel to the fighting in Gaza. Prior to those events, Hezbollah — an organisation drawing its base from Lebanon's sizeable Shia population — held a position as the country's dominant force in both political and armed terms.
The group, which maintains ties to Iran, had built a presence extending across multiple countries in the region. Throughout the Syrian conflict, Hezbollah provided military backing to the Assad government, deploying fighters that helped government forces reclaim areas held by opposition groups. Ties to affiliated groups operating in Iraq and Yemen formed another dimension of its broader network.
Within Lebanon's political landscape, Hezbollah held a degree of electoral weight that allowed it to shape the formation or dissolution of governments. Hezbollah's readiness to mobilise its base extended to street-level confrontations, as demonstrated in 2019 when its supporters moved through Beirut to push back against demonstrators demanding an overhaul of the confessional political order — a system in which the group had carved out a prominent role following the conclusion of Lebanon's fifteen-year civil conflict in 1990.
Hezbollah's posture in the period before October 2023 reflected an organisation operating with a notable degree of assurance. Among the examples cited by Nicholas Blanford, a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and author of a book on the organisation, were a military parade staged by Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and the organisation's installation of tents at Shebaa Farms, an area Lebanon regards as remaining under Israeli occupation. Large-scale street protests were roiling Israeli society at the time, while Nasrallah, in repeated public addresses, declared that the country was nearing its collapse.
Jad Dilati, a political analyst from the southern Lebanese city of Nabatieh, told a news outlet that the events of October 7 set off a sequence Lebanon's political structures were ill-equipped to handle, and that Hezbollah's decision to open what became known domestically as the War of Support — its cross-border engagement against Israel beginning October 8, 2023 — was taken without a cabinet vote, governmental agreement, or any consultation with the southern Lebanese communities who bore, and continue to bear, the heaviest consequences. Dilati further noted that Hezbollah entered that front operating under the assumption of strength, a view widely held in the south given years of investment in precision missiles, an extensive tunnel network, and weaponry that residents had been told could reach targets throughout Tel Aviv — yet over the eleven months that followed, exchanges of fire between Israel and Hezbollah continued, with strikes on Lebanese territory occurring at a rate more than five times that of Hezbollah's attacks on Israel.
Across the border zone where southern Lebanon meets northern Israel, whole communities emptied out as tens of thousands of people left their homes behind. Military operations attributed to Israel saw a notable escalation during September 2024. On September 23 alone, around 500 people lost their lives, with fatalities accumulating at a pace that left little time for communities to absorb the toll.
Reports from Lebanese officials, as relayed through media at the time, indicated that Nasrallah had expressed readiness to accept a ceasefire arrangement, yet Israel proceeded with ordering his assassination alongside evacuation directives for parts of Beirut's southern suburbs. Blanford observed that whenever Nasrallah showed openness to a halt in hostilities, Israel was pursuing an active military course and had no intention of reverting to the conditions that had existed before.
Observers pointed out that Hezbollah had miscalculated the depth to which Israeli intelligence had embedded itself within the group's networks in the months before fighting broke out — a miscalculation laid bare by the coordinated pager attack of September 2024 and the subsequent deaths of much of the organisation's top-tier leadership, including Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah. Blanford told a prominent news outlet that Hezbollah had entered a downward trajectory that ended in the loss of its uppermost leadership tier and an Israeli ground incursion into southern Lebanon, and that those developments had eroded the group's standing among its own constituency while contributing to both the election of Joseph Aoun as president and the formation of a new government that adopted a posture toward Hezbollah considerably firmer than its predecessors — leaving the group in a measurably weaker position on the domestic political stage.
Troops entered southern Lebanon in October 2024 and remained on Lebanese soil for over two months following a ceasefire agreement reached in November. Demolition of homes and infrastructure in southern Lebanon proceeded in the days following the ceasefire agreement, while Israeli forces held positions at five points within Lebanese territory rather than withdrawing. In neighbouring Syria, the collapse of the al-Assad government by December 2024 interrupted overland supply lines that the group had relied upon to move weapons and money from Iran.
A portion of analysts have attributed changes in the contours of Lebanese political life to that particular ruling, though the extent of its influence remains a matter of interpretation. Analysts maintain that the group retains operational capacity, even as its standing as Lebanon's dominant political and military force has eroded considerably from what it once held.
Across the 14 months that followed the ceasefire, recorded breaches attributed to Israel numbered upward of 10,000 separate incidents. Armed conflict between Israel and Lebanon resumed at heightened intensity when March 2026 arrived. Projectiles launched from Hezbollah-controlled territory toward Israel marked the group's first such operation in more than a year, coming after Hezbollah cited what it characterised as repeated violations of a ceasefire arrangement and the death of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whom the organisation had long regarded as a central religious and political authority. Military operations by Israel extended into Lebanese territory, with a series of strikes carried out across multiple areas of the country.
Figures from 2024 onward point to more than 9,000 deaths across Lebanon, alongside the uprooting of over 1.2 million residents from their homes and communities throughout the country. Stretching as far as 10 kilometres — or just over 6 miles — inland at certain points, portions of Lebanese territory along the border remain under Israeli military presence. Farmland that once shaped the identity of dozens of communities has given way to open ground and rubble across those same areas, with little trace of the populations that once occupied them. Vast numbers of people have yet to find their way back home.
A contraction of more than 6 percent in the national economy over 2026 is what World Bank data now reflect. A World Bank assessment following the 2024 conflict placed Lebanon's recovery and reconstruction needs at approximately $11 billion.
Following previous conflicts with Israel — including the 2006 war — Hezbollah channelled resources toward rebuilding ties with its constituency and providing material support to those who backed the group. Delivering social services to residents has allowed the group to build and hold onto a loyal following among those it represents. From 2024 onward, Lebanon's government and a broad coalition of international partners have been directing efforts toward broadening the range of services each delivers.
Friction between Hezbollah and the Shia communities that once formed its base has deepened noticeably, with many Lebanese Shia now expressing the view that Iran left them behind, that armed confrontation was brought onto their land in the service of outside agendas, and that they want no further involvement in hostilities — yet analysts and foreign diplomats point out that the group holds onto both its military capacity and its position as the leading political force among Lebanon's Shia population. Blanford noted that the mass displacement of hundreds of thousands of Shia into areas where they feel unwelcome has sharpened a collective sense of vulnerability that continues to draw people toward the group, while Dilati observed that no competing political option has taken shape to offer a credible alternative, and that the conclusion Hezbollah has been reduced to an exhausted force is, by the weight of expert opinion, an overstatement.
Blanford further noted that the trajectory of the group hinges considerably on how regional developments unfold, and that displaced residents who have lost not only their homes but also their villages, orchards, banana plantations, tobacco fields, and other livelihoods may, over time, come to associate their losses with Hezbollah's decisions rather than with external forces.
