Beirut, Lebanon – When Israel and Hezbollah agreed to a ceasefire in November 2024, the popular perception was that the pro-Iranian Lebanese group was a spent force.
At the time, an intensification of Israel’s war on Lebanon had eliminated much of the group’s senior leadership, including longtime Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, and the Israeli military had invaded the country’s south.
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At the governmental level, Lebanon began discussing the group’s full disarmament, while debates raged inside the country over Hezbollah’s future as both a military and political power.
However, Hezbollah is now back on the battlefield, fighting Israel in southern Lebanon, and appears not to be as degraded a fighting force as many believed.
Analysts told Al Jazeera that the group’s fortunes seem to have turned, but that its future is still unclear and is likely tied to the negotiations between Washington and Tehran, primarily focused on ending the US-Israel war on Iran and the standoff in the Strait of Hormuz.
Hezbollah still strong
Following the November 2024 “ceasefire”, Israel continued to periodically attack Lebanon, at a lower intensity, for the next 15 months, killing hundreds of people. Hezbollah avoided responding until March 2, days after US-Israeli strikes assassinated Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a figure held in high esteem by the Lebanese Shia group.
The Lebanese government banned Hezbollah’s military activity on the same day. Still, Israel intensified its attacks, including in Lebanon’s capital, Beirut, expanded its invasion and occupation of Lebanese territory, and displaced more than 1.2 million residents. A cessation of hostilities was announced by US President Donald Trump on April 16 for 10 days, which was then expanded to three weeks. Still, intense fighting continues in southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah has said it will not accept a one-sided ceasefire this time around, whereby Israel attacks its members and infrastructure and the group does not respond.
On Monday, a Hezbollah military leader told Al Jazeera that the group would return to conducting suicide operations on Israeli targets in Lebanese territory, a practice it had deployed in the 1980s but has stayed away from in recent years or wars.
And analysts said Hezbollah’s demise had been overstated.
“Although many people said that Hezbollah was defeated, it is clear that Hezbollah is still strong and succeeded in realigning its ranks,” Kassem Kassir, a Lebanese journalist close to Hezbollah, told Al Jazeera.
Nicholas Blanford, a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council and the author of a book on Hezbollah, told Al Jazeera that the group’s reemergence was unsurprising.
“They still retained considerable capabilities, they had plenty of fighters, they had time to reorganise, and they still had plenty of weaponry.”
Negotiations will determine Hezbollah’s future
As the war rages, negotiations are taking place on two tracks of great importance to the future of Lebanon and Hezbollah.
The first track is the direct negotiations between Lebanon and Israel. The first two meetings took place in Washington, DC, earlier in April, with the US acting as the broker. The Lebanese state has said that it is attempting to get Israel to withdraw from southern Lebanon and reach a lasting peace agreement, similar, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun has said, to the 1949 armistice agreement between the two countries.
“I will not accept reaching a humiliating agreement,” he wrote in a post on social media.
Hezbollah, however, has refused to abide by the results of these negotiations and expressed its full-throated opposition to them.
“We categorically reject direct negotiations, and those in authority should know that their approach will not benefit Lebanon nor themselves,” Hezbollah’s leader, Naim Qassem, said in a statement on Monday. “What the Israeli American enemy wants from them is not in their hands, and what they want from it will not be granted.”
The second track is the stuttering negotiations in Islamabad between the US and Iran. Iran has been Hezbollah’s main benefactor since its founding during the Lebanese civil war (1975-1990).
A ceasefire between the US and Iran went into effect on April 8. Iran and Pakistan originally said the ceasefire extended to Lebanon, though Israel and the US denied this. Israel killed more than 350 people in Lebanon that day, including at least 150 civilians, according to ACLED, an independent conflict monitor.
“The future of Hezbollah can now be determined only after the end of negotiations, whether between Iran, America and a Lebanese level,” Kassir said. “Hezbollah is becoming more popular and stronger and is able to meet all challenges, but any role it has in the future is linked to the outcome of the negotiations.”
It is also notable that regional diplomatic meetings have started, with Saudi Arabia playing a major role, aimed at finding a consensus in Lebanon. One prominent meeting took place on April 23, between Saudi Arabia’s envoy, Prince Yazid bin Farhan, and Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, a key Hezbollah ally.
Berri later thanked bin Farhan and Saudi Arabia’s “efforts to assist Lebanon on various levels, especially those related to halting the Israeli aggression targeting Lebanon’s security, sovereignty and stability”.
Hezbollah’s Iranian benefactor
While Hezbollah is not as weak as many had originally thought, it still has many obstacles to overcome.
Hezbollah draws the vast majority of its support from Lebanon’s Shia Muslim community and is largely unpopular among other groups. When Hezbollah reentered the war on March 2, it faced dissent, including from the Shia community. Much of that criticism has seemed to subside, though, as the group has continued to engage Israel’s military in southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah is still heavily reliant on Iran for its financial backing. While much of Iran’s leadership was assassinated during the US and Israeli war on the country, Tehran seems unlikely to capitulate militarily or in negotiations.
Iran also sees Hezbollah as intrinsic to its own survival and interests, analysts said.
“To speak about the future of Hezbollah is to speak about the future of Iran,” Joseph Daher, author of Hezbollah: Political Economy of the Party of God, told Al Jazeera. “Iran will not abandon it.”
Reports circulated recently that the US has asked Iran to stop funding regional allies, including Hezbollah and Hamas. Daher said that while Iran has the ascendant role in the relationship with Hezbollah, descriptions of the latter group as a proxy are inaccurate. Still, the two parties share many mutual interests and coordinate in turn.
But analysts said they think Iran’s distrust of the US and Israel means it is unlikely to abandon its Lebanese ally.
Economically, the fall of the Assad regime in Syria was a major loss for the group, as the new Syrian government has cracked down on smuggling routes into Lebanon. But the shift in the balance of power against Hezbollah’s favour has not been enough.
“The main problem for the Lebanese state is [that] it cannot claim to win legitimacy only by taking sovereignty over arms,” Daher said, adding that it needs to provide a political alternative to genuinely undermine the group and diminish its steadfast domestic support.
Even with the setbacks, though, Hezbollah’s main funding has always come from the Iranians, experts said. And if the Iranians are able to stay standing, Hezbollah should find a way to survive, too. But what that looks like, politically and militarily, depends heavily on the outcome of the various negotiations.
“All possibilities are still on the table,” Kassir said.
