The Lebanese militia Hezbollah has traded fire with Israeli troops along the border since the day after Hamas’ Oct. 7 surprise attack in southern Israel sparked war in the Gaza Strip. Both sides have suffered casualties, but the fear is that the conflict will escalate and spiral into a regional fight.
FILE - In this photo released on Oct. 25, 2023, by the Hezbollah Media Relations Office, Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, right, meets with Ziad al-Nakhleh, the head of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, center, and Hamas deputy chief, Saleh al-Arouri, in Beirut. When the Lebanese militia Hezbollah announced last week that its leader Hassan Nasrallah would deliver his first public speech since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, much of the region held its breath.
“Iran’s support has helped Hezbollah consolidate its position as Lebanon’s most powerful political actor as well as the most equipped military actor supported by Iran in the whole of the Middle East,” Lina Khatib, the director of the SOAS Middle East Institute in London, told The Associated Press. However, domestic opponents criticized Hezbollah for maintaining its arsenal and dominating the government. Its reputation also suffered when it briefly seized a section of Beirut in May 2008 after the Lebanese government took measures against its private telecommunications network.
In recent years, Hezbollah sent forces to Syria to help fellow Iranian ally President Bashar Assad against armed opposition groups. It also supported the growth of Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, Yemen and Syria. A schism erupted between Hamas and the Iranian-backed axis over the Syrian civil war, where Hamas for some time backed Syria’s largely Sunni opposition fighters.
Some Hamas officials, including its second-in-command, Saleh al-Arouri, have since moved to Lebanon, where they have Hezbollah’s protection and a presence across Lebanon’s multiple Palestinian refugee camps.For Hezbollah, fully entering the Israel-Hamas war would risk dragging Lebanon — beset by economic calamity and internal political tensions — into a conflict it can ill afford, fueling domestic opposition to the group.
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