It is not only in Gaza that the Israeli army has been particularly involved in recent weeks. On the northern front of the Jewish state, on its border with Lebanon, fighting is also intensifying against Hezbollah, support of Hamas, and which is currently adopting a rather vague posture regarding its involvement in the conflict. The Shiite movement, considered terrorist by the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union, is undoubtedly one of the best equipped non-state armed groups in the world. Thanks in particular, according to the United States, to Iran: Washington estimates the financing coming from the Iranian Islamic Republic at several hundred million dollars per year.
The leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, claimed in 2021 that his party had nearly 100,000 fighters. A figure “likely to be inflated” judges Dina Arakji, an analyst at the Control Risks consulting firm, from Agence France Presse. The International Institute for Strategic Studies, a British research institute in international relations, estimated that Hezbollah could have “up to 20,000 active members” in 2022.
Hezbollah can nevertheless count on an “elite force” called the al-Radwan unit, continues Dina Arakji, supervised directly by the Iranian army, and whose numbers approach 2,500 fighters. The group also has tunnels and trenches dug by the movement in the region and through which its members circulate. Finally, many of its soldiers are seasoned fighters, having notably fought in Syria with the regime of Bashar al-Assad.
A number of rockets “multiplied by ten”
In terms of weapons, Hezbollah has only grown stronger since the last direct conflict it waged against Israel in 2006. At the time, the party possessed “around 15,000 rockets”, but this number has been “multiplied by almost ten over the last two years according to estimates”, adds Dina Arakji. In total, almost 150,000 munitions, a number around which a majority of experts agree. This, in particular thanks to direct military support from Iran.
The Shiite armed group thus has a very diverse arsenal of missiles. It claims in particular the fact of having had high-precision missiles since 2018, of which Hassan Nasrallah assured on August 14 that it would only take a few of them to destroy “the airports […]power plants, communications centers and the Dimona (south) nuclear power plant, in Israel. The party also has guided missiles that it has used in its attacks against Israel since the start of the war on October 7 .
Among the rest of the missiles, Hezbollah announced in August that it possessed an anti-armor weapon consisting of two launch platforms and designed to fire Russian Kornet anti-tank missiles, called “Thar Allah” (Allah’s Vengeance). Hezbollah has surface-to-sea missiles, which it had already used during the war in 2006, but also anti-aircraft missiles, notably used against Israeli drones.
Reconnaissance and attack drones
Finally, the pro-Iranian party has different types of drones, which it uses for reconnaissance or attack. On November 11, Hassan Nasrallah revealed that his group had begun using suicide drones “for the first time” to strike Israeli targets. He added that Hezbollah now sends reconnaissance drones “daily” deep above Israel, “some of which reach Haifa, Acre and Safed” in the North.
During his first statement at the beginning of November, Hassan Nasrallah did not involve Hezbollah in the conflict between Israel and Hamas. But the leader of the Shiite party is more recently sending signals towards an intensification of conflicts on the Lebanese border. There is no doubt then that Israel will have to face an enemy which, if it does not have the strength of a State, is more than capable of defending itself.