History of Hezbollah

Hezbollah developed parallel military, political, and social programs rather than abandoning its armed organization when it entered electoral politics.[1] Its principal geographic bases were the Bekaa Valley, southern Lebanon, and Beirut’s southern suburbs, and its development depended heavily on Iranian financial, logistical, and training assistance.[1][5] Social and charitable activities helped it establish support among Lebanese Shiites, while attacks on foreign military forces formed another central element of its mobilization.[1]

The movement’s original objectives included driving Israel from Lebanon and establishing an Iranian-style Islamic republic.[6][7] Its 1985 manifesto called for Israel’s destruction, identified the United States and Soviet Union as Islam’s principal enemies, and expressed an ideological commitment to the teachings of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.[1] A replacement political document issued in 2009 omitted the demand for an Islamic order in Lebanon and discussed consensual democracy, but continued to reject a negotiated settlement with Israel.[1]

Hezbollah’s relationship with the Lebanese state combined participation in its institutions with the maintenance of a separate armed force.[1] It entered parliament in 1992 and the cabinet in 2005, yet retained its weapons after both the civil war and Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000.[1] Its subsequent history included an armed confrontation inside Beirut in 2008.[1] It later intervened in Syria despite Lebanon’s official policy of disassociation from regional conflicts.[2][8] Renewed warfare with Israel began in October 2023.[9]

Hezbollah’s ideological roots extended to a Shiite Islamic revival centered in southern Iraq during the 1960s and 1970s.[1] Clerics and students educated in Najaf returned to Lebanon and helped mobilize a Shiite community that had historically experienced marginalization.[1] The outbreak of Lebanon’s civil war in 1975, Israel’s invasion in 1978, the disappearance of Imam Musa Sadr that year, and Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979 were pivotal developments shaping the movements from which Hezbollah emerged.[1]

Lebanese Shiite political mobilization also reflected underrepresentation in state institutions and dissatisfaction with conditions in southern Lebanon.[6] Amal emphasized domestic Shiite rights, whereas the emerging Hezbollah current promoted an Islamic state modeled on Iran, independence from Western powers, and resistance to Zionism.[6] Some Shiites initially regarded Israel’s 1982 invasion as an opportunity to displace the Palestine Liberation Organization from the south; that sympathy diminished as Israel maintained its military presence and pursued political talks with Lebanon’s ruling Christian hierarchy.[6]

After the 1982 invasion, Shiite leaders divided over their response to Israel and over Lebanon’s political future.[1] Supporters of armed resistance and an eventual Iranian-style Islamic republic broke from Amal and formed Al Amal al Islamiya, commonly called Islamic Amal.[1] This faction became a vanguard of the religiously inspired groups that subsequently operated under Hezbollah’s name.[1] Younger and more radical Amal members supplied many of the movement’s recruits, while Lebanese Shiite clerics played a central role in its formation.[10]

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards directly supported Islamic Amal and related emerging groups through finance, training, and organization.[1] Revolutionary Guard personnel arrived in Lebanon toward the end of 1982 to assist the creation of an Islamic revolutionary movement, whose early core lay around Baalbek in the northern Bekaa Valley.[5] Iranian assistance helped these groups expand into Beirut’s southern suburbs and Shiite hill towns in southern Lebanon, while Syrian assistance also contributed to the spread of their military network.[1][5]

Hezbollah remained loosely organized and largely clandestine until the publication of its manifesto in 1985.[1] Its public emergence that year established a more coherent, hierarchical organization with an open statement of doctrine and objectives.[7] The document called for an end to American and French influence in Lebanon and for Israel’s departure, while affirming the movement’s commitment to Islamic government and the population’s right to choose its political system.[7]

The manifesto combined religious conservatism, hostility to imperialism, and allegiance to the revolutionary ideology associated with Khomeini.[1] It identified the United States and Soviet Union as principal enemies of Islam and called for the “obliteration” of Israel.[1] Its proposed Islamic system was to be adopted “on the basis of free and direct selection by the people, not the basis of forceful imposition.”[1] The document also rejected treaties or ceasefires with Israel and demanded the departure of Western peacekeeping forces from Lebanon.[11]

During the 1980s Hezbollah participated in the Lebanese civil war, repeatedly clashed with Amal, and conducted increasingly sophisticated attacks against Israel.[10] It simultaneously established an extensive social-services network for supporters, linking its military development to institutions that served its constituency.[10] Attacks on Israeli forces and American military and diplomatic targets helped the emerging groups present themselves as leaders of resistance to foreign military occupation.[1]

The rivalry with Amal became particularly destructive in 1988, when a struggle for control of southern Lebanon escalated into full-scale fighting.[7] More than 1,000 people died before Syria and Iran brokered a peace agreement.[7] The two movements nevertheless continued competing for leadership of Lebanon’s Shiite community after the civil war, even as Hezbollah developed a distinct military and political organization.[1]

The April 18, 1983 bombing of the United States Embassy in Beirut killed 63 people.[7] On October 23, bombings of the American and French barracks killed 241 United States military personnel and 58 French paratroopers.[1] The American dead comprised 220 Marines, 18 sailors, and three soldiers; the French barracks were struck minutes after the American installation.[1]

The United States government holds Hezbollah responsible for attacks and hostage-taking directed against Americans in Lebanon during the 1980s, including the embassy and Marine barracks bombings.[1] Islamic Amal and similar or affiliated groups received Iranian training and organizational assistance during this formative period and were credited with attacks including the barracks bombing.[1] Accounts of the barracks attacks also connect them to the name Islamic Jihad.[7]

Other attacks associated with Hezbollah’s early history included the September 1984 bombing of the American embassy, which killed 20 people, and the November 1983 bombing of Israeli headquarters in Tyre, which killed 29.[6] The movement’s activities during the decade also included alleged kidnappings and car bombings predominantly directed against Westerners.[7]

Israel pulled back in 1985 to a security buffer zone in southern Lebanon, after which Hezbollah concentrated much of its effort on attacking Israeli forces there.[6] Many Shiites regarded the American withdrawal from Lebanon and Israel’s pullback as victories for Hezbollah.[6] The organization also targeted Israel’s Lebanese ally, the South Lebanon Army, and filmed and distributed footage of its guerrilla operations internationally as part of an effort to influence Israeli public opinion.[12]

The 1989 Taif Accord called for Lebanon’s militias to disarm and dissolve, but Hezbollah classified its armed members as an “Islamic resistance” dedicated to ending Israel’s occupation.[1] After the civil war ended in 1990, it was among the few militias not disarmed by Syrian forces.[10] It continued its military campaign against Israeli troops and the South Lebanon Army throughout the 1990s.[1]

Subhi al-Tufayli, Hezbollah’s first secretary-general, served from 1989 to 1991 and was removed after refusing to enter politics.[13] Abbas al-Musawi succeeded him and was killed in an Israeli strike in February 1992, after which Hassan Nasrallah became secretary-general.[13][14] Under Nasrallah, Hezbollah developed beyond its militia origins to encompass parliamentary activity and social programs.[4]

Participation in the 1992 national election brought Hezbollah eight parliamentary seats and marked its transition toward an active electoral role.[1] It nevertheless maintained parallel political, social, and military programs, with its extensive service network contributing to its popularity.[1] Iranian support and training helped increase its military professionalism during the same period.[6]

Israel launched Operation Accountability in July 1993 and Operation Grapes of Wrath in 1996 while Hezbollah continued attacks on Israeli troops in southern Lebanon and communities in northern Israel.[6] Neither large-scale operation destroyed Hezbollah or displaced it from its enclaves in southern and eastern Lebanon.[1] Although Hezbollah’s capabilities grew, Israeli military superiority meant that many of its offensives failed.[12]

In 1997 al-Tufayli led an internal challenge called the “revolution of the hungry,” accusing Hezbollah’s leadership of abandoning its social obligations to Lebanese Shiites.[14] Nasrallah prevailed with Iranian and Syrian backing, and the protesting group surrendered its weapons.[14] Hezbollah and Amal subsequently cooperated electorally: a joint list in the 2000 election won a majority of constituencies in the south and Bekaa Valley.[15]

Hezbollah’s history also includes attacks on Israeli and Jewish targets outside Lebanon, notably in Argentina during the 1990s.[14] The Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires was bombed in March 1992, and accounts connect the attack to Hezbollah with Iranian assistance.[6][14] The attack extended the organization’s confrontation with Israel beyond the Lebanese border.[14]

In July 1994, the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires was bombed, killing 85 people.[7] A Times of Israel retrospective attributes the bombing to a Hezbollah suicide attacker, reports more than 300 injured, and says Iran orchestrated it.[16] These bombings formed part of a broader history of attacks against Israeli and Jewish targets associated with Hezbollah during Nasrallah’s leadership.[14][16]

Israel completed its withdrawal from southern Lebanon in May 2000, and Hezbollah claimed credit for forcing the departure.[6] The organization retained its weapons and continued activity across the border, invoking unresolved land disputes and Lebanese prisoners held by Israel.[5] It cited the continuing Israeli presence in Shebaa Farms and other areas as a central justification for maintaining its armed organization.[1]

The United Nations considered Israel’s withdrawal complete and treated Shebaa Farms as Syrian territory captured with the Golan Heights, while Hezbollah maintained that Israel had not fully left Lebanese territory.[14] Hezbollah continued attacks against Israeli forces along the border after the withdrawal.[6] Its continuing possession of arms became a central issue in debates over Lebanese sovereignty and implementation of the postwar settlement.[1]

Hezbollah supported Syria’s involvement in Lebanon and organized a large rally in Beirut on March 8, 2005, after the assassination of former prime minister Rafic al-Hariri and the announcement of Syria’s withdrawal.[10] The rally’s date subsequently gave its name to the pro-Syria March 8 political bloc.[10] Syria withdrew its forces amid the backlash following Hariri’s assassination, while Hezbollah faced increasing domestic pressure to disarm.[10]

In the July 2005 parliamentary election Hezbollah won 14 of 128 seats, and it entered the cabinet for the first time that year.[6][1] Two Hezbollah delegates became ministers, while a third minister elected as an independent had the organization’s endorsement.[6] UN Security Council Resolution 1559 called for Syrian withdrawal and the disarmament of armed militias, but Lebanon did not implement the disarmament requirement, in part because of Hezbollah’s political influence.[14]

On July 12, 2006, Hezbollah fighters crossed the international border, attacked an Israeli patrol, killed three Israeli soldiers, and abducted Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev.[14] Hezbollah simultaneously fired rockets at Israeli border towns.[14] The operation sought to pressure Israel to release Lebanese prisoners.[10]

Israel responded with airstrikes and a ground operation, while Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel.[2] The war ended following UN Security Council Resolution 1701.[2] Approximate fatalities were 1,190 Lebanese and 163 Israelis, and Lebanese civilian infrastructure sustained extensive damage.[2] About one million people were displaced during the war.[10]

Hezbollah and Lebanon suffered serious damage, yet the organization’s popularity rose in Lebanon afterward.[6] Hezbollah’s ability to withstand the Israeli campaign increased its standing, and Nasrallah’s, in Lebanon and much of the Arab world.[12] The organization subsequently faced public criticism over its failure to rebuild some villages as promised.[14]

On August 15, the day after the ceasefire, Hezbollah representatives began distributing cash, including payments of $12,000 to families that had lost their homes.[17] Some Lebanese residents praised the assistance, while critics argued that the war had strengthened the organization excessively.[17] In July 2008 the bodies of the two captured Israeli soldiers were returned in an exchange involving five Lebanese prisoners and the bodies of approximately 200 others.[10]

After the 2006 war, Hezbollah and Amal ministers resigned from the cabinet, and the opposition demanded a new government in which it would possess veto power.[10] The resulting confrontation continued into May 2008, when the government moved to dismantle Hezbollah’s private telecommunications network.[10] Hezbollah regarded that network as important to its capacity to fight Israel.[2]

Hezbollah-led fighters seized control of parts of Beirut, demonstrating the organization’s ability to employ armed force inside Lebanon.[2][18] The government reversed its decisions, and a Qatar-mediated settlement signed on May 21, 2008, became known as the Doha Agreement.[2][10] The settlement granted the Hezbollah-led opposition the veto power it had sought and helped end a two-year deadlock over the election of a president.[10][18]

In November 2009 Nasrallah presented a new political document to replace the 1985 manifesto.[1] It did not call for an Islamic order in Lebanon, instead discussing consensual democracy as a guiding principle for the state.[1] The platform emphasized coexistence among religious sects, a sovereign and independent Lebanon, a strong state, and public liberties.[19]

The revised document continued to reject a negotiated settlement with Israel and advocated a defense arrangement combining popular resistance with the Lebanese national army.[1] It retained support for Iran and resistance to Israel while affirming a democracy representing national unity rather than sectarian interests.[10] The change in domestic political language therefore accompanied the continuation of the organization’s armed role and opposition to Israel.[1]

Hezbollah and its allies supplied parliamentary support for Najib Mikati to become prime minister in 2011.[10] Of the 30 ministers in the cabinet formed that June, 18 were Hezbollah allies.[10] In the May 2018 election the March 8 bloc won a parliamentary majority, and Hezbollah gained government influence through allied ministers and two minor cabinet posts.[5] The bloc lost its majority in the 2022 election, although Britannica described it as remaining predominant in parliament.[10]

Reports of Hezbollah fighters entering Syria appeared by late 2012, and Nasrallah publicly confirmed the intervention in May 2013.[10][8] Hezbollah fought on behalf of Bashar al-Assad’s government, despite Lebanon’s official policy of disassociation from regional conflicts.[2] Syria was a key transit point for Iranian weapons supplied to Hezbollah, and preserving Assad’s government helped protect that connection.[2]

Hezbollah publicly framed its intervention as protection for Shiite communities and the shrine of Zaynab following attacks on Shiite targets and villages near the Lebanese border.[8] The involvement drew criticism within Lebanon, including from Shiites who objected to fighters dying in a war they did not consider their own.[8] Nasrallah pledged to continue fighting until the rebels were defeated.[10]

The intervention assisted Assad’s overstretched military and gave Hezbollah experience operating alongside other Iranian-backed forces and Russian forces.[18] Mustafa Badreddine was killed near Damascus in 2016.[5] Hezbollah’s Syrian campaign thus added sustained regional combat to an organization already combining Lebanese electoral participation, social services, and an independent military structure.[2][13]

Hezbollah began firing projectiles into northern Israel on October 8, 2023, the day after the Hamas-led attacks on Israel, describing its actions as support for Hamas.[9] Its opening fire targeted an Israeli position at Mount Dov, and it also invoked the liberation of what it called remaining occupied Lebanese land.[9] The exchanges displaced residents on both sides of the border.[20] Near-daily attacks on Israeli border communities displaced approximately 60,000 residents of northern Israel.[9]

Israeli strikes killed Hezbollah commanders during 2024.[9] Explosions of pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah members killed dozens and injured thousands.[9] On September 27 an Israeli airstrike in Beirut’s southern suburbs killed Nasrallah, ending his 32 years at the organization’s head.[9][4] Israeli ground forces entered southern Lebanon on October 1.[9]

On October 29 Hezbollah announced that its Shura Council had selected Naim Qassem, previously Nasrallah’s deputy, as secretary-general.[3] The announcement presented the appointment as following Hezbollah’s established selection mechanism and pledged continuity with its principles and objectives.[3] The secretary-general reports to the Shura Council, whose religious and organizational leaders oversee the movement’s activities.[14]

A ceasefire announced on November 26 took effect at 04:00 on November 27, 2024.[9][21] Its published terms required Lebanon to prevent Hezbollah and other armed groups from operating against Israel and restricted armed deployment in the southern Litani area to Lebanon’s official military and security forces.[21] The Lebanese army was to deploy and dismantle unauthorized military sites and infrastructure, while Israel withdrew south of the Blue Line in parallel, on a schedule not exceeding 60 days.[21]

Britannica assesses that Hezbollah’s standing was significantly diminished by the 2024 war.[10] In January 2025 parliament elected Joseph Aoun president, filling a vacancy that had lasted since Michel Aoun’s term ended in October 2022; Hezbollah had struggled to secure support for its preferred candidate.[10] The ceasefire remained tenuous and effectively ended in March 2026, when Hezbollah fired missiles at Israel in response to the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.[10] As Israel resumed strikes around Beirut, Lebanon’s government moved to outlaw Hezbollah’s military activities and permit arrests of those involved.[10]

Hezbollah’s parallel civilian institutions provided health, education, finance, and other services to its Shiite constituency and remained in place after Nasrallah’s death.[4] Their persistence reflected an organizational structure broader than the military leadership alone.[4] Earlier charitable and social activities had helped build popular support during the movement’s emergence, while the extensive service network remained a factor sustaining its popularity after it entered parliamentary politics.[1]

Across its history, Hezbollah combined participation in Lebanon’s state institutions with military capabilities maintained outside the national armed forces.[1] That combination shaped its response to postwar disarmament, its role in cabinet politics, the 2008 confrontation in Beirut, and the later ceasefire provisions assigning armed authority in southern Lebanon to official state forces.[1][21] Its Iranian connections and Syrian intervention also linked Lebanese domestic politics to wider regional conflicts.[2]

The transition from the 1985 manifesto to the 2009 platform changed Hezbollah’s stated model for Lebanon’s political order without ending its rejection of a negotiated settlement with Israel.[1] Its historical development therefore involved both adaptation to Lebanese electoral and governmental institutions and continuity in its separate military program.[1] Nasrallah’s death marked a major leadership rupture, but the selection of Qassem and survival of the service institutions preserved organizational continuity.[3][4]

Historical accounts distinguish Hezbollah’s emergence around 1982 from its consolidation and public manifesto in 1985; assigning a single founding date can obscure those different stages.[1][7] Responsibility for particular early bombings and kidnappings is also disputed because Hezbollah, Islamic Amal, Islamic Jihad, and related groups were not consistently distinguished during its formative years.[1][7]

The more enduring political disputes concern Hezbollah’s retention of weapons, Lebanese sovereignty, its ties to Iran and Syria, and its invocation of Shebaa Farms to justify continued armed activity after Israel’s 2000 withdrawal.[1][14] Its intervention in Syria and use of force in Beirut intensified Lebanese disagreement over the legitimacy and purposes of its military organization.[17][8]