How Hezbollah’s Alienation of Lebanese Ethnic Groups Led to its Decimation Against Israel

Hezbollah, also known as the “party of God’ is based in Lebanon and is the world’s most powerful non-state militia. Considered to be Iran’s most powerful proxy, Hezbollah has been a thorn in Israel’s side for over 40 years—even fighting the Israeli army on equal footing from the 1980s and mid-200s.

However, through a series of sectarian and mercenary-like activities over the past decade, Hezbollah gradually isolated itself from the Lebanese public, which indirectly led to the group’s gradual decimation by Israel in 2024.

Hezbollah’s Initial Popularity

Against the backdrop of the Iranian Revolution, the new Shiite Khomeinist regime, which rapidly consolidated power with mass executions, wished to export its form of theocratic Islam across the Middle East. Lebanon was ripe to “export” the revolution as the Shiites were marginalized in politics and power along with the powder keg of the civil war.

Sending over a thousand Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps members, IRGC operatives created Hezbollah with the help of pro-Iranian Shia Muslims in Lebanon. With a major source of income from the Islamic Republic, Hezbollah carried out major attacks such as the Marine Barracks Bombing and US and French Embassy Bombings, which earned the group a foreign terrorist designation.

After the withdrawal of Western peacekeepers, Hezbollah quickly made allies with the Syrian army, whose Baathist party had split with Saddam’s Baathist Iraq. At the end of the civil war, the Syrian-backed Taif Agreement stated Hezbollah could be the only militia allowed to carry weapons as both entities were in a state of war against Israel.

Waging a guerilla campaign against Israeli forces and their South Lebanon Army allies, Hezbollah fought the IDF to a war of attrition, and eventual domestic and international pressure forced Israel to withdraw in 2000.

The paramilitary quickly consolidated along the South and Bekka Valley, providing social services that the Lebanese government failed to deliver. The militia formed a political wing that became Lebanon’s largest party.

Hezbollah would again fight Israel in July 2006, and despite igniting the war, the group once again gained popularity in the Arab World as the paramilitary was the only force to fight a near equal footing against the IDF.

Showing Their True Colors in Syria

After being praised as a powerful adversary to Israel across the Islamic world, Sunnis and Shiites alike, Hezbollah quietly conducted black market operations in Africa and Latin America as drugs are another major source of income not only for the terror group but their allies in Syria and Iran.

In the mid-2010s, Bashar al-Assad, the longtime autocrat in Syria, came under pressure from dissidents, various rebel militant groups, and extremist organizations. Assad and the IRGC leadership would request direct Hezbollah intervention, which helped turn the tide in favor of the former, albeit with damaging consequences for the Shiite militia.

Hezbollah would be linked to various brutal sieges and sectarian attacks against Sunni Muslims—straining their once popular standing in the Islamic world. Now, being mercenaries for hire instead of “defending” Lebanon and Palestine, as the group stated, the militia’s popularity took a major hit in Lebanon as well.

Backlash Against Hezbollah in Various Sects and Governmental Policies

Hezbollah’s sectarian violence in Syria would be one of the growing list of concerns the group would face as such acts came back home to Lebanon. Syria is a majority Sunni Muslim country, with the majority of Syrian refugees being Sunnis; the Shiite militia gradually fell out with other Sunnis in not just the Gulf States but Lebanon.

Hezbollah operatives were also indicted and convicted in the assassination of Prime Minister Rafic Hariri, a prominent Assad regime critic, which continued to strain relations with Sunnis in Lebanon.

Growing increasingly close to the Islamic Republic and Assad, Hezbollah became an intermediary of the captagon drug trade, which plagues Lebanon and other Arab states. With the militia in control of the border and port and having major control over the airport, a major incident was bound to happen as the Iranian proxy continued to serve its foreign backers—and that was the Beirut Blast.

The militia is a major suspect in the unstable ammonium nitrate scandal, which caused the port explosion in August 2020, as the organization directly controls access to the area and fights. The party also vetoes governmental propositions on investigating the perpetrators behind the negligence that killed 218 and wounded thousands of others.

The Shiite militia already had a low relationship with the Maronites, particularly the Lebanese Forces party. Deterioration between the two groups reached a new height in the October 2021 clashes.

In the October 2021 clashes, Hezbollah and their Amal allies forcibly entered the Christian neighborhood of Ain El Remmaneh carrying weapons in an attempt to intimidate Judge Tarik Bitar, who heads the Beirut Port investigation. The clashes saw six members of Hezbollah and their Amal allies killed and renewed tensions between the Lebanese Forces and Shiite militia.

Hezbollah also caused anger amongst the Druze community in Lebanon—particularly in 2021 when Druze villagers detained a rocket team from the militia that used their village as human shields against Israel.

The Majdal Shams rocket attack by Hezbollah that killed a dozen Druze teenagers also exacerbated tensions as the Druze have been some of the biggest opponents of Iranian influence in Syria and the Assad regime.

The More Isolated, the More Exposed

During the South Lebanon Conflict and 2006 war, Hezbollah’s manpower was only several thousand as the group focused on guérilla tactics. However, the Syrian Civil War would greatly expose the organization to Israeli attacks and penetration.

The Syrian Civil War at its height saw combatants on various sides suffering hundreds to several thousands of casualties a day, and Hezbollah was no exception to the attrition. Nasrallah dramatically increased recruitment to replenish the losses the militia took, even stating the group had over 100,000 fighters and allies in various countries.

In a September 2024 article, the Financial Times revealed that the bigger Hezbollah became, the more likely Israel was able to place spies and agents and collect more human intelligence on the organization.

Expanding the organization into a full army instead of a few thousand fighting forces exposed the militia. Whereas it is much easier to keep tabs on 1-2,000 full-time fighters, Hezbollah now had trouble keeping up with 50-100,000 militiamen.

Adding to the alienation of other ethnic groups in Lebanon and deteriorating popularity in the Arab world, the Israeli army has thoroughly annihilated much of Hezbollah’s senior and mid-level commanders. Without being able to use other sects’ neighborhoods to attack the IDF, Hezbollah is relegated to the South, Bekaa Valley, and Dahiye neighborhoods of Beirut.

Overall, the more Hezbollah became a mercenary-for-hire organization for Iran and Syria instead of a fighting force for Lebanon, the militia unwittingly started its decimation and decapitation. Now in a precarious situation, Hezbollah does not have the popular support or sympathy it once had amongst fellow Arabs to support the organization in its war against Israel.