HIKMA SUMMIT
OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

The nature of Hezbollah

Hezbollah - literally “Party of God” - emerged in Lebanon’s Beqaa Valley in 1982, with substantial backing from Iran. Founded on the principle of resistance against the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon, the group’s relationship with Israel has since been defined by persistent tensions and confrontation. The hostility has been further intensified by geographical proximity and strategic pressure: Hezbollah’s presence and operations in southern Lebanon, just north of the Israeli-Lebanese border, create an extremely volatile setting in which any action, incident, or miscalculation risks being perceived by either side as a direct threat, potentially escalating into open conflict.

Hezbollah embodies a dual identity. On the one hand, it positions itself as a militant force committed to a perpetual, regional fight against Israel - encouraged and sponsored by Iran and Syria. On the other hand, it operates as a key political actor within Lebanon, representing the Shiite community in the country’s government. So, it is an Iranian-backed Islamic militant organization as well as a Lebanese political party.

The first signs of the decline: the 2006 war and the Syrian conflict

Yet, the 2006 war exposed the fragility of this dual role, as it inflicted severe damage on Hezbollah’s core base – the Shiite population of Lebanon. Although Hezbollah declared a “divine victory” (naṣrāllah) – echoing the last name of its charismatic leader, Hassan Nasrallah – the war proved costly for the organization. Yet three factors prevented a total erosion of legitimacy. First, Nasrallah’s regional popularity remained strong; second, domestic criticism among Lebanese Shiites was muted despite widespread frustration; and finally, Hezbollah’s swift involvement in post-war reconstruction helped restore its image as a protector and provider. However, the heavy losses and destruction strained its support within Shiite Lebanon.

The cracks that appeared after the 2006 war deepened in the years that followed. Hezbollah’s image as both a national defender and a political actor began to erode further with its involvement in the Syrian conflict, which marked the first clear stage of its decline, when the group intervened militarily to support Bashar al-Assad’s regime. Concerned that Assad’s fall would sever a crucial supply route for Iranian weapons, Hezbollah openly joined key battles, as later confirmed by Nasrallah in April 2013. However, this intervention deepened sectarian division in Lebanon and weakened domestic support, as many Lebanese Shiites feared retaliation and questioned Hezbollah’s growing entanglement in a foreign war. Its deep involvement in Syria blurred its identity as a Lebanese resistance movement, recasting it as an extension of Iran’s regional strategy and reducing the domestic legitimacy it once derived from defending Lebanese sovereignty.

From Gaza to Tehran: the fall of Hezbollah

Although these initial fractions in Hezbollah’s identity, the 2023 Palestine-Israel conflict transformed this fragility into an unmistakable decline. Seeking to reassert its role as the vanguard of resistance, the Shiite Lebanese group’s engagement revealed its strategic limits, its dependence on Iran, and its diminishing capability to influence regional dynamics. Following Hamas’ surprise attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, Hezbollah chose a dangerous path. The following day, the terrorist group started a northern phase against Israel, escalating the dimension of the crisis beyond Gaza and the West Bank. With its large military arsenal, it launched limited strikes on Israeli targets, seeking to demonstrate solidarity with Hamas while carefully keeping its actions below the threshold that might provoke a full-scale war – and ultimately threaten its own survival. However, Hezbollah’s strategic calculations failed to anticipate Israel’s response. Indeed, Israeli military and intelligence services rapidly broadened their operations beyond Gaza, adapting an integrated strategy that combined conventional military action with precision intelligence efforts. This approach outmatched Hezbollah’s expectations and led to the group’s severe degradation, including large-scale losses and targeted strikes against its leadership – among them was its long-time leader, Hassan Nasrallah, who had guided the organization for more than three decades.

The 12-day war between Israel and Iran in June 2025 marked a watershed moment in the confrontation between Israel and Hezbollah. Tehran’s long-standing support for anti-Israel armed groups – among them Hezbollah – combined with its increasingly aggressive rhetoric, reinforced Israel’s perception of Iran’s nuclear program as an existential threat. Moreover, Donald Trump’s return to the US presidency in November 2024 further shifted the regional balance, building on the effects of his earlier withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal and his “maximum-pressure” campaign against Tehran, which had already reshaped Middle Eastern dynamics in Israel’s favor. Inevitably, any pro-Israeli US support is viewed by Tehran as additional pressure, especially since it is not excluded that the Iranian state will again come under a new set of sanctions that will further isolate the country in the international arena. The sanctions will economically cripple Iran, and their effects in the medium and long term bring into question the reduction of Tehran’s ability to finance and arm Hezbollah and other militias, which inevitably provides an important strategic advantage to Israel. Although Tehran managed to mount a limited response to Israel’s offensive and proclaimed victory, the conflict dealt a heavy blow to Iran’s regional network of proxies. Hezbollah, in particular, faced the most direct repercussions: the disruption of Iranian supply routes and the weakening of Tehran’s logistical and financial support.

Conclusions

Whether or not regime change in Iran materializes, the 2025 conflict - and the previous fractions - underscored Hezbollah’s growing vulnerability and signaled the erosion of its deterrent capacity, confirming that the Lebanese group no longer poses the same existential threat it once did. Together, these developments trace Hezbollah’s trajectory from a once-powerful resistance movement to a weakened – and perhaps even defeated – regional actor. Its decline not only redifines the balance of power between Israel and its adversaries but also signals the fading relevance of armed resistance as a political model in the contemporary Middle East. This power shift could open a strategic vacuum in Lebanon and Syria, where rival factions or external actors – particularly Iran’s competitors and Gulf-aligned limitias – may seek to assert greater influence.

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