Could rival Lebanese factions exploit a weakened Hezbollah?

Beirut, Lebanon – The killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Friday has capped a series of blows to the Lebanese Shia movement over recent weeks.

Israel has killed a large number of senior leaders and commanders, as well as middle and lower-ranking members. It has also heavily infiltrated Hezbollah’s communications network, as revealed in the pager and walkie-talkie attacks in mid-September.

These major blows – both to the group’s morale and capabilities –  raise serious questions about whether Hezbollah will be able to maintain its powerful role in Lebanese domestic politics and resist a possible Israeli invasion, analysts told Al Jazeera.

“Hezbollah is very vulnerable. As an organisation that has been decimated, it is difficult to see them spring back to normal anytime soon,” said Mohanad Hage Ali, an expert on Lebanon and a senior fellow with the Carnegie Middle East Center.

A power vacuum?

Since the end of Lebanon’s 15-year civil war in 1990, Hezbollah has consolidated firm control over Shia politics in the country by championing identity, religion and resistance as an elixir to guard against Israel and the US’s role in the region.

The group’s philosophy strongly resonated with Shia communities, who were jubilant when Hezbollah liberated south Lebanon from 18 years of Israeli occupation in 2000.

As Hezbollah accumulated more power, wealth and weapons, it gradually became the dominant force in Lebanese politics, making it a polarising player in the country. Accusations of involvement in the killing of its rivals dogged Hezbollah, including the killing of Sunni leader Rafik Hariri in 2005. Hezbollah has repeatedly denied any involvement, but a member of the group was found guilty of assassinating Hariri by a United Nations-backed tribunal in 2020.

In 2008, Hezbollah even turned its weapons against its fellow Lebanese, triggering a standoff that brought the country to the brink of a civil war.

Hezbollah was responding to a decision by the Lebanese government to disable the group’s private communication network, further evidence for those who labelled the group a state within a state – and one that prevented the Lebanese state from being strong enough to properly rule the country.

A few years later, Hezbollah sent fighters to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad during a pro-democracy uprising. The uprising quickly turned into a civil war after the Syrian government turned its weapons against its own people, leading to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians.

By dragging Lebanon into regional conflicts – often at the behest of its backer, Iran –  Hezbollah damaged its popularity at home and deepened its rift with rival sectarian factions. Now, those factions may look to capitalise on Hezbollah’s apparent weakness to reassert their own dominance, experts say.

“The demolition of Hezbollah’s capabilities will likely embolden its opponents and anti-Iranian forces within Lebanon,” said Imad Salamey, an expert on Lebanon and a political scientist at the Lebanese American University.

Christian and Sunni factions in the country have long seen Hezbollah as effectively high-jacking the Lebanese state through its military strength. Hezbollah’s armed wing is stronger than the Lebanese army due in large part to support it has received from Iran.

But with the group now clearly weakened, Hezbollah’s domestic rivals could seize the change to further isolate the group.

There are already calls for Lebanon to elect a new president who is not aligned in any meaningful way with Hezbollah. And on Monday, Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati said that he was prepared to deploy the army to southern Lebanon to implement a UN resolution that would end Hezbollah’s armed presence in that area.

Mikati’s declaration came after a meeting with the Shia parliamentary speaker Nabih Berri, often an intermediary between Hezbollah and the factions opposed to it.

“Political factions that have long opposed Hezbollah’s dominance, particularly those aligned with Western interests, may see this as an opportunity to push for more radical changes, including greater alignment with the West,” Salamey told Al Jazeera.

According to the expert, the potential power vacuum could lead to civil strife and a breakdown in social order – and could tempt global players to exploit the chaos for their own interests.

Even before the current escalation between Israel and Hezbollah, Lebanon was acutely fragile.

The country runs a confessional system, which means that political positions are reserved for members of specific religious sects. Foreign involvement can therefore aggravate the country’s delicate balance of power. Lebanon has also been without a president for almost two years after political groups, including Hezbollah, were unable to agree on a candidate. In the meantime, the country has been going through a debilitating economic crisis, forcing more people into poverty, even before the outbreak of the current conflict.

“With Hezbollah’s military and political power severely undermined, Lebanon may enter a period of heightened instability and uncertainty, where the lack of a strong actor to fill the power vacuum could make the country more susceptible to external interventions and internal fragmentation,” Salamey said.

Lebanon has been pummelled by Israeli bombs in the past two weeks, including one attack that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on September 27 [AFP]

Israel’s role?

While Hezbollah appears weak, Christian and Sunni factions likely won’t be able to exploit Hezbollah’s weakness unless they align with Israel, argues Salamey.

He believes that Israel will become the new dominant force in Lebanon via its aerial supremacy and that Israel could channel material and financial support to factions looking to isolate Hezbollah.

During the civil war, Israel provided political and financial backing to the right-wing Christian Kataeb Party, which committed a series of massacres and rights abuses, in order to combat the Palestine Liberation Organization.

This time, Salamey said, Lebanon might fall under a security arrangement broadly similar to that of the occupied West Bank, where Israel co-opts the Palestinian Authority to deepen its influence and occupation.

“Aerial occupation is sufficient to dictate political and security arrangements [in Lebanon],” Salamey told Al Jazeera. “[And] unlike the West Bank, Israel could find more allies and support in Lebanon, particularly from sectarian groups that have been marginalised under Iranian hegemony in Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon.”

But Nicholas Blanford, an expert on Hezbollah with the Atlantic Council think tank, said that Israel has not achieved either of its apparent war aims. It has not been able to push Hezbollah back behind the Litani River in southern Lebanon, or safely return its northern residents to their homes.

Israel, he added, may conclude that an incursion into south Lebanon is necessary to achieve its objectives.

“Presumably the Israelis will come to the conclusion that air power alone won’t deter Hezbollah [from firing rockets] and therefore they need to send troops over the border,” Blanford told Al Jazeera.

“When that happens, they will be marching into a terrain [and battle] that Hezbollah has had 18 years to prepare for.”

Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli air strike that targeted the southern Lebanese border village of Zawtar on September 29, 2024 [Rabih Daher/AFP]

Can Hezbollah survive?

Despite suffering major blows, it’s tough to fully assess the vulnerability of Hezbollah, say analysts. Hezbollah is not a “top-heavy” institution, allowing it to typically recover from losing senior officers, according to Blanford.

He referenced the death of Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah on Friday night.

Nasrallah was hiding in an underground bunker when Israel dropped a reported 80 bombs on his location – obliterating residential buildings and likely killing countless civilians – in Dahiyeh, a now-devastated suburb of Lebanon’s capital of Beirut.

“The possibility of Nasrallah being killed has always been there, so that’s why there is a mechanism in place to elect a new leader,” explained Blanford.

Hage Ali, from Carnegie, is less optimistic that Hezbollah will survive in its current form.

He stressed that Israel is decimating Hezbollah’s senior leadership through disproportionate strikes that are devastating and uprooting the Shia community.

“It’s like blast or dynamite fishing,” he told Al Jazeera. “[Israel] kills a hundred fish, just to get the few that it wants.”

People pray on September 26, 2024 over the shrouded bodies of members of the same family who were killed during an Israeli air strike that targeted the southern Lebanese village of Jbal el-Botm, ahead of their funeral [Bilal Kashmar/AFP]

In the long-term, Hage Ali believes that Israel is aiming to impose United Nations Security Resolutions 1701 and 1559, respectively.

The former calls for Hezbollah to retreat to the north of the Litani River and for UN peacekeepers to govern a demilitarised zone. The latter calls for the disarmament of all militias in Lebanon, including Hezbollah.

These measures would likely require Israel to reoccupy south Lebanon – a move that could resuscitate Hezbollah, said Hage Ali.

“I don’t see Israel succeeding if it imposes a long-term occupation. Hezbollah will eventually return in some form. These sorts of [resistance] organisations don’t die when their leaders go away.

“Hezbollah is more than just an organisation,” he added. “It’s an identity project that brings together Islam and resistance, both of which are intertwined with broader community thinking and [Shia community] narratives.”