The reasons for Israel to fear a war with Hezbollah are given: “A very skillful and advanced military organization”

Tensions are high along Israel’s border with Lebanon, with clashes leading to a number of deaths in recent days. An anti-tank missile fired from Lebanese territory fell in the city of Metula in northern Israel. The Israeli Defense Forces responded with artillery and airstrikes. Dozens of villages south of the border were evacuated.

Experts have been warning since the beginning of the current escalation that if Hezbollah leaders (or, more likely, Tehran) decide to escalate the current low-level fighting, it could lead to a bloody and complex conflict on two fronts for Israel and, hence – potentially – a regional conflagration, since it will involve Syria, Iran, the United States and other actors.

At the same time, some analysts believe that Hezbollah, with its “idea fix” about the destruction of Israel, has something to lose in the event of a full-scale conflict. Many observers speculate that Hezbollah has been seeking to provoke a short, limited war for some time, but wants to avoid a larger clash with the Israelis. “However, everyone agrees that in such a tense environment there is a significant risk of fatal miscalculation,” The Guardian states.

One additional factor was the massive presence of American troops sent to the Eastern Mediterranean region with the clear intention of intimidating Hezbollah and its patrons in Tehran.

What will happen when the expected Israeli ground offensive on Gaza begins is another question. A Hezbollah spokesman described its attacks as a “warning” to Israel, while senior Hezbollah figures have repeatedly said the group will not stand by. And in Iran, warnings were heard from high stands that “the likely spread of the war to other fronts is approaching an inevitable stage.”

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Relations between Hezbollah and Palestinian Hamas are not always simple. The Lebanese Shiite group is inspired by the ideas of the Iranian Islamic Revolution, while Hamas has its roots in the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood movement (a terrorist organization banned in the Russian Federation). The civil war in Syria has exacerbated factional differences. Hamas refused to support the Alawite government of Bashar al-Assad, while Shiite militias from Lebanon fought on his side.

True, contradictions do not prevent representatives of Hezbollah and Hamas (and, as they say in the West, Iranian security officials) from regularly consulting with each other. After all, they all have a common enemy: Israel.

Hezbollah (the name translates as “party of God”) controls most of Lebanon’s Shiite areas: southern Beirut, southern Lebanon and the eastern Bekaa Valley.

And in order to understand the specifics of this group, it is necessary to understand the peculiarity of the confessional structure of the “land of cedar”. There are 18 officially recognized religious denominations in Lebanon: Maronite Christians, Greek Orthodox, Greek Catholics, Armenian Gregorians, Armenian Catholics, Syriac Jacobite Orthodox, Syriac Catholics, Roman Catholics, Copts, Evangelical Christians, Chaldean Catholics, Assyrian Church of the East, Shiites of the twelve prophets, Sunnis, Ismailis, Druze, Alawites, Jews. If, according to the 1932 census, Christians made up 55% of the population, then 70 years later the majority of the Lebanese population (about 60%) was represented by Muslims. But the country continues to maintain the distribution of senior government positions introduced a long time ago, which does not correspond to the real structure of society: the post of president can be occupied by a Maronite Christian, the post of prime minister can be occupied by a Sunni, and Shiites are only given the post of speaker of the Lebanese parliament. But this situation does not in any way meet the aspirations of the ever-increasing Shiite community in Lebanon, which is gradually turning from a minority into the largest community in the country. At the same time, Shiites are considered one of the poorest communities in Lebanon (except perhaps for Palestinian refugees).

The Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 was the impetus for the awakening of the political activity of Lebanese Shiites. And the Islamic revolution in Shiite Iran also played its role.

By the way, initially the Lebanese Shiites were not particularly belligerent towards Israel. On the contrary, they even at one stage viewed the Israeli invasion of Lebanon as an opportunity to get rid of their inconvenient proximity to Palestine Liberation Organization bases and Palestinian refugee camps. However, after the Israelis blocked Shiite access to markets in the north of the country and abroad during the conflict (which had an extremely adverse effect on the social situation and local economic interests), they began to reconsider their attitude towards Israel.

Against this background, emissaries of the Iranian “Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps” arrived in the Bekaa Valley, which, apparently, contributed to the emergence of the “Party of Allah” around the radical Shiite clerics. Its goal was to create an Islamic republic. In its manifesto, Hezbollah declared: “We reject the USSR, the USA, capitalism and communism as equally incapable of laying the foundations of a just society.” And indeed, Lebanese Shiite militants not only killed hundreds of American Marines, but also participated in the kidnapping of diplomats from the Soviet Union. And Israel was declared one of the main opponents of the new party, which in the group’s propaganda is referred to as an “illegal Zionist entity” subject to destruction.

And over the past decades, anti-Israeli rhetoric has not changed. But the political weight of the “Party of God” has grown significantly.

Today, Hezbollah is considered one of the most important Islamist movements in the Middle East. Based in Lebanon, it not only has a powerful military wing that is currently in the spotlight, but is also a political party with enormous influence, television stations and a vast network of social services, including clinics and schools. Hezbollah’s extensive business interests (both legal and illegal) bring the movement hundreds of millions of dollars.

This wide range of resources and its close ties to Iran and Syria have helped Hezbollah overcome many challenges during its 40-year existence, notes international affairs journalist at The Guardian Jason Burke.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps played a key role in the very beginning of the organization’s existence.

For Tehran, Hezbollah is not only an outpost in opposition to the “Zionist regime” of Israel, but also an instrument for spreading Iranian influence. Thanks to Hezbollah, Iran has the opportunity to build a kind of “Shiite belt” of confrontation with the West and Israel – from the borders with Central Asia through the Shiite majority of Iraq to the Eastern Mediterranean.

Over the decades of its existence, Hezbollah has transformed from one of many political groups in Lebanon into a powerful regional player – this was manifested, in particular, during the civil war in Syria, where Shiite fighters helped Bashar al-Assad survive the battles with jihadists at the most critical moment. Islamic State” (a terrorist organization banned in Russia) and others like them. According to Western press reports, Hezbollah specialists were sent both to Iraq to train Shiite militias and to Yemen to work with Houthi rebels.

It took relatively little time for Hezbollah to actually turn from a small and not very strong Shiite movement, from an internal political force into a subject of not only regional, but even world politics.

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In a number of countries (including the United States and Israel), Hezbollah is recognized as a terrorist organization. And for this they, presumably, have reasons. Since the party’s founding by a group of radical Shiite clerics in 1982, Hezbollah has been blamed for major and bloody acts of violence in Lebanon against Israel. However, the group’s activities were not limited to Lebanese soil alone, and the targets of its attacks were not only Israelis.

Thus, in October 1983, a week after two Shiites were killed during the Shiite holiday of Ashura in the southern Lebanese village of Nabitye as a result of a conflict between the Israeli military and a crowd of Shiites, in Beirut a suicide bomber in a truck bomb exploded the barracks of American Marines ( 241 people died).

At the same time, around the same time, an explosion occurred in the building where French paratroopers from the multinational forces were located (58 soldiers were killed). After another 10 days, a car bomb was detonated at the headquarters of the Israeli military in Tire (29 Israeli soldiers were killed).

The consequence of these suicide attacks was the withdrawal of multinational forces from Lebanese territory, and ultimately the withdrawal of Israeli occupation forces from southern Lebanon. Moreover, these explosions made an indelible impression both on world public opinion and on terrorist organizations around the world (primarily Islamic). Terrorism experts view Hezbollah as a pioneer in mass suicide attacks. Alas, this bloody “fashion” was picked up by a mass of imitators – and reached our country…

Those who want to get an idea of ​​the activities of Hezbollah can watch the relatively recent mini-series “Ghosts of Beirut” about one of the most famous figures of the group, Imad Mughniyeh. The above-mentioned and other militant actions are very clearly shown there.

Hezbollah was not only active in the Middle East. In retaliation for the elimination by the Israeli Air Force of one of the leaders of the movement, Abas Mousavi, the group staged a suicide attack against the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992 (killing 29 people), and in 1994 carried out another attack in the Argentine capital against the building of the local Jewish community ( was presented as retaliation for an Israeli air strike on a Hezbollah training camp in Lebanon).

In recent decades, Hezbollah has not resorted to high-profile terrorist attacks. This party, by declaring that it is not a terrorist organization but a “militia of volunteers,” demonstrates the ability to transform itself towards the mainstream. But from Israel’s point of view, the enemy nature of the Lebanese group has not gone away. Moreover, in the summer of 2006, it was Hezbollah that was the main opponent of the Israeli army during the next war in Lebanon – a war that did not end, by the way, with a clear victory for the IDF. It is also no coincidence that Hezbollah facilities have more than once become targets of Israeli strikes in neighboring Syria.

And Israel has thousands of reasons to fear Hezbollah.

“Recent video showing militants training with sniper rifles, skis and skidoos in the mountains of Lebanon may have somewhat exaggerated Hezbollah’s military capabilities, but few analysts doubt that they are significant,” notes The Guardian’s Jason Burke.

The Lebanese Shiite militant group has 20,000 fighters, many of them well-trained and well-armed, according to Navid Ahmed, an independent Gulf analyst who specializes in Hezbollah. Moreover, the size of the detachments can be quickly expanded by attracting another 30 thousand people, and then additionally equipped with less well-trained auxiliary forces.

Many Hezbollah commanders have gained useful experience fighting in Syria, where the group has deployed en masse to bolster Assad’s regime, and experts say Hezbollah’s stronghold in southern Lebanon is now protected by a system of deep bunkers, tunnels and underground storage depots.

Hezbollah also has a huge stockpile of long-range missiles that can strike almost anywhere in Israel and penetrate protective shields, destroying critical infrastructure and also hitting populated areas. Recent Israeli airstrikes in Syria were likely aimed at preventing further Hezbollah supplies from Iran, The Guardian notes.

“They are arming themselves to the teeth,” says expert Navid Ahmed. “They have stockpiles of missiles, a lot of artillery shells… They have long-range drones that can carry a full payload.” It is a very capable and advanced military organization due to its experience in Syria.”