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- DictionaryHez·bol·lah/ˌhezbəˈlä/
- 1. an extremist Shiite Muslim group which has close links with Iran, created after the Iranian revolution of 1979 and active especially in Lebanon.
Hezbollah's paramilitary wing is the Jihad Council, and its political wing is the Loyalty to the Resistance Bloc party in the Lebanese Parliament. Its armed strength is assessed to be equivalent to that of a medium-sized army. Hezbollah was established by Lebanese clerics primarily to fight the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon.
- Introduction
- How Did Hezbollah originate?
- How Is It Organized?
- What Role Has It Played in Lebanese Politics?
- Where Does It Stand on Israel?
- What Role Has Hezbollah Played in The Syrian Civil War?
- What Is The Extent of Hezbollah’s Involvement in The Israel-Hamas War?
- How Have The United States and Other Countries Treated The Group?
- What Is The Future of The Organization?
Hezbollah is a Shiite Muslim political party and militant group based in Lebanon, where its extensive security apparatus, political organization, and social services network have fostered its reputation as “a state within a state.” Founded in the chaos of the fifteen-year Lebanese Civil War, the Iran-backed group is driven by its opposition to Isra...
Hezbollah emerged during Lebanon’s fifteen-year civil war, which broke out in 1975 when long-simmering discontent over the large, armed Palestinian presence in the country reached a boiling point. Various Lebanese sectarian communities held different positions on the nature of the Palestinian challenge. Under a 1943 political agreement, political p...
Hezbollah is led by Hassan Nasrallah, who took over as secretary-general in 1992 after Israel assassinated the group’s cofounder and previous leader, Abbas Al-Musawi. Nasrallah oversees the seven-member Shura Council and its five subcouncils: the political assembly, the jihad assembly, the parliamentary assembly, the executive assembly, and the jud...
Hezbollah has been a fixture of the Lebanese government since 1992, when eight of its members were elected to Parliament, and the party has held cabinet positions since 2005. The party marked its integration into mainstream politics in 2009 with an updated manifesto that was less Islamist than its predecessor and called for “true democracy.” The mo...
Israel is Hezbollah’s main enemy, dating back to Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon in 1978. Hezbollah has been blamed for attacks on Jewish and Israeli targets abroad, including the 1994 car bombings of a Jewish community center in Argentina, which killed eighty-five people, and the bombings of the Israeli Embassy in London. Even after Israel...
Hezbollah finds a loyal ally in Syria, whose army occupied most of Lebanon during Lebanon’s civil war. The Syrian government remained as a peacekeeping force in Lebanon until it was driven out in the 2005 Cedar Revolution, a popular protest movement against the foreign occupation. Hezbollah had unsuccessfully pushed for Syrian forces to remain in L...
Following the October assault on Israel by Hamas, the Iran-backed Palestinian militant group that governs the Gaza Strip, Hezbollah has fired shellsacross the Israel-Lebanon border in a show of what the group’s leaders called “solidarity” with Hamas, and several Hezbollah militants reportedly attempted to infiltrate Israel. Iran and Hezbollah likel...
U.S. policymakers see Hezbollah as a global terrorist threat. The United States designated Hezbollah a foreign terrorist organization in 1997, and several individual Hezbollah members, including Nasrallah, are considered speciallydesignatedglobalterrorists, which subjects them to U.S. sanctions. The Barack Obama administration provided aid to Leban...
Experts say that Hezbollah’s international network is expanding, but that the group isn’t eager for outright war with Israel or the United States. Instead, some analysts say, Hezbollah prefers covert operationsand terrorist activities. Even Hezbollah’s threats of retaliation for the 2020 U.S. drone strike that killed Qasem Soleimani, the head of th...
Hezbollah, militant group and political party that emerged in Lebanon following the Israeli invasion of that country in 1982. The group gained prestige after a 34-day war with Israel in 2006 and became increasingly prominent in Lebanese politics thereafter.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Oct 19, 2023 · Hezbollah is an Iran-backed Islamist movement with one of the most powerful paramilitary forces in the Middle East. The group, which has its main base on the Israel-Lebanon border, could become a ...
Oct 17, 2023 · Hezbollah said it was in "direct contact with the leadership of the Palestinian resistance" on Oct. 7, the day Hamas militants carried out an unprecedented assault from Gaza into Israel, killing ...
Oct 19, 2023 · It took the name Hezbollah, Arabic for “Party of God.”. Hezbollah soon found a new ally in Iran, and a foe in the United States, after it was involved in the suicide bombing of the American ...
Nov 3, 2023 · Hezbollah is one of the most heavily-armed, non-state military forces in the world. It is funded and equipped by Iran. Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah has claimed that it has 100,000 fighters, although ...
