Operating as a state within a state, the role, influence and power of the armed Lebanese group, Hezbollah, continues to mystify many.For the past year, since Israel launched its war on Gaza, Hezbollah and Israel have exchanged near-daily fire across Israel’s northern border with Lebanon. This has culminated in the Israeli bombardment of Beirut and other parts of Lebanon in what Israel claims were targeted attacks on Hezbollah leaders. As a result, Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader for 32 years, was killed, along with several other senior leaders and commanders leaving what many observers have called a power vacuum.
Established in response to the 1982 to Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, Hezbollah has since evolved into one of the most powerful factions within modern Lebanon, one that combines domestic and international political reach, social traction and daunting military capabilities.
[Al Jazeera]
What is Hezbollah’s political influence?
Hezbollah’s identity, both as an armed group and a political organisation, allied with its extensive welfare programme, has earned the group significant heft within Lebanon’s fractured democratic political system.
Close ties to a network of sympathetic political parties which, while not formally allied to Hezbollah, nevertheless support it, have gained the group a defining role within the Lebanese parliament and national governmental progress.
However, in recent years, Hezbollah’s political fortunes have come under pressure, as its controversial involvement in the Syrian civil war, when it sent fighters to support the Syrian regime’s armed forces, along with Lebanon’s economic and political stagnation, have undermined popular support for the group, leading to it los …
