Beirut, Lebanon – A day after the October ۷, ۲۰۲۳, attack on Israel and the beginning of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, Hezbollah made the decision to join the war, in what it said was support of the Palestinian people. It is a decision that analysts say has forever shaped Lebanese politics.
Experts said the group had underestimated the depth of Israel’s intelligence penetration in the run-up to the war, which later manifested in the bloody September ۲۰۲۴ pager attack and the assassination of much of Hezbollah’s leadership, including Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah.
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“Hezbollah got sucked into a vortex which culminated in the decapitation of their leadership and the invasion of south Lebanon,” Nicholas Blanford, a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and author of a book about Hezbollah, told Al Jazeera. “That dealt Hezbollah a major blow to their popular standing and galvanised the election of Joseph Aoun as president and the formation of a new government that took a much stronger line against [the group].”
Hezbollah’s decisions have left the group politically weakened. And while analysts say the group has not been defeated, despite claims to the contrary from some critics, it is no longer the political or military hegemon in Lebanon it once was.
‘A motion of events’
Before October ۷, Hezbollah – a group representing Lebanon’s large Shia community – was the strongest political and military actor inside the country. The Iranian-backed group’s influence stretched across the region. Hezbollah was a key ally of the al-Assad regime in Syria and helped it retake territory from anti-Assad opposition groups. It also had connections with allies in places such as Iraq and Yemen.
Hezbollah had key electoral influence in Lebanon, where it often wielded its power to elect or collapse governments. It was also not against deploying its supporters against movements opposed to it, as in ۲۰۱۹ when they took to the streets of Beirut to beat back protesters calling for political reform of the country’s sectarian system, in which Hezbollah has become a key player in the years since the end of Lebanon’s ۱۵-year civil war in ۱۹۹۰.
In the months leading up to October ۲۰۲۳, Hezbollah’s confidence was on clear display. Blanford pointed to examples such as a military parade in south Lebanon conducted by Hezbollah, and the group erecting tents in the Shebaa Farms – on territory that Lebanon considers occupied by Israel.
At the time, Israel was roiled by protests, and Nasrallah was delivering speeches predicting the imminent doom of Israel. The decision to join the fight against Israel in what became known in Lebanon as the War of Support came on October ۸, ۲۰۲۳.
“October ۷ set in motion a chain of events that Lebanon’s political system was not properly prepared to manage,” Jad Dilati, a political analyst from Nabatieh in southern Lebanon, told Al Jazeera. “Hezbollah opened its support front for Gaza on October ۸ completely unilaterally, without any cabinet decision or governmental consensus or even taking into account the positions of the southern [Lebanese] residents who were most affected and still are most affected by these actions.”
“Hezbollah opened the support front on October ۸, genuinely believing that it was operating from a position of strength,” Dilati said. “Most of the South believed that Hezbollah was operating from a position of strength after it had spent years building precision missile capabilities, an elaborate tunnel network and these missiles that we were told can hit every building in Tel Aviv.”
Israel’s re-invasion
For the next ۱۱ months, Israel and Hezbollah traded attacks, albeit with Israel hitting Lebanon more than five times for every Hezbollah attack. Tens of thousands from southern Lebanon and northern Israel fled their homes.
But in September ۲۰۲۴, Israel unilaterally intensified attacks. The Israeli-induced carnage came quickly and heavily, with nearly ۵۰۰ people killed on September ۲۳ alone. When Nasrallah was said to have accepted a ceasefire – according to Lebanese officials quoted in media reports – Israel ordered his assassination and the evacuation of areas of Beirut’s southern suburbs.
“When Nasrallah was amenable to a ceasefire, Israel was on the offensive and wasn’t going to return to the previous status quo,” Blanford said.
Israel invaded southern Lebanon in October ۲۰۲۴ and stayed in Lebanese territory for more than two months after a ceasefire was agreed in November. Despite the ceasefire, Israel continued to destroy homes and infrastructure in southern Lebanon and refused to pull its troops out of five locations on Lebanese territory. Next door in Syria, the fall of the al-Assad regime in December ۲۰۲۴ also dealt a blow to the group, as its land routes to receive weapons and funding from Iran were disrupted.
Over the next ۱۴ months, Israel violated the ceasefire more than ۱۰,۰۰۰ times. Then in March ۲۰۲۶, Israel reintensified its war on Lebanon. The attacks came after Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel for the first time in more than a year as a response to the myriad ceasefire violations and the assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whom Hezbollah viewed as a religious and political leader.
Israel then invaded Lebanon again and launched widespread attacks on the country. It has killed more than ۹,۰۰۰ people in Lebanon since ۲۰۲۴ and displaced more than ۱.۲ million people, emptying entire regions of the country.
Hezbollah’s legitimacy crisis
Israel now occupies large swathes of Lebanese territory, stretching up to ۱۰ kilometres (more than ۶ miles) from the border at some points. Dozens of villages, once filled with agriculture and people, are now uninhabited piles of dust and rubble. Hundreds of thousands remain displaced.
This has had a massive impact on Lebanon. The World Bank says the country’s economy has contracted by more than ۶ percent in ۲۰۲۶. After the ۲۰۲۴ conflict, the World Bank said Lebanon needed around $۱۱bn for recovery and reconstruction. That figure is likely much higher now.
In the aftermath of past wars against Israel, such as in ۲۰۰۶, Hezbollah was able to support much of its community and supporters. Providing social welfare has been key to the group’s ability to maintain popularity and belief among its constituents.
But since ۲۰۲۴, the Lebanese state, along with much of the international community, has been working to expand its own services. The state is also openly claiming it is working to disarm Hezbollah, despite the group’s objections, as part of a framework agreement with Israel.
“Hezbollah is in a legitimacy crisis that it has not faced before,” Dilati said. “I wouldn’t say that there is a rupture in the community or a complete political realignment, but a big part of the communities that supported it for decades are saying that Iran left them behind, the war was fought on their land for someone else’s interests, and that they don’t want wars anymore.”
Still, while grumbles against the group are growing louder, analysts said Hezbollah remains the most popular representative among Lebanon’s Shia Muslims.
“Hezbollah is providing for their needs by and large, and there is no alternative politically for the Shia community at the moment,” Blanford said. “What is binding them to Hezbollah is the fact that several hundred thousand Shias were booted out of their homes and are living in non-Shia areas where they do not feel particularly welcome, and this can create a sense of vulnerability that naturally makes them gravitate to Hezbollah as communal protection, rightly or wrongly.”
The group also maintains fighting capacity, and despite critics calling it a spent force, analysts and foreign diplomats say its weakness has been overstated. Much of the group’s future depends on the outcome of regional events, particularly regarding the US-Israeli war on Iran. But analysts said the status quo – in which the state is negotiating with Israel and trying to extend its influence across Lebanese territory, and Hezbollah adapts to waning domestic influence – could work against the group.
“The key thing is this looks like a long occupation, and you may get a situation where people who have not only lost their home but lost their village, orchards, banana plantations, tobacco fields and the rest of it may think life was good before and may start blaming Hezbollah,” Blanford said.
