What is Hezbollah?
Hezbollah is an organisation founded, funded, trained and armed by Iran. It is primarily based in Lebanon, but operates a criminal and terrorist network around the world.
What does it want?
Hezbollah ultimately wants the military destruction of Israel. It has been used as an Iranian proxy to threaten Israel, and is one of many proxy forces that Iran uses to extend its influence and objections across the Middle East.
Hezbollah also interferes in Lebanese politics, with a long history of assassinating politicians, judges, journalists and others that seek to investigate or limit Hezbollah or Iranian malfeasance in Lebanon.
Is Hezbollah a terrorist organisation?
Yes. The Australian Government proscribed the entirety of Hezbollah in November 2021. This means, under Australian law, it is illegal to be a member of Hezbollah, fundraise for Hezbollah, recruit for Hezbollah, associate with Hezbollah, display Hezbollah’s flag or other symbol, or praise Hezbollah terrorist acts in such a way it might lead someone to engage in terrorism.
All these offenses are listed in the Criminal Code. Look up sections 80.2C, 80.2HA, and all of sections 101 and 102 here.
Why is everyone talking about the possibility of war between Israel and Hezbollah?
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Shouldn’t the UN or the international community be doing something to stop this?
Well, yes. In 2006, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1701, which authorised the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL – the UN peacekeepers in Lebanon) to use all necessary means to evict Hezbollah from south of the Litani River, which runs east-west, roughly parallel with but about 30km north of the Israel–Lebanon border.
Since then, UNIFIL has taken no actions to remove Hezbollah from the border region. Instead, it has allowed Hezbollah to build up troop numbers, build up its weapons stockpiles, and fortify its positions. All this means that any war between Hezbollah and Israel today will be far, far worse for civilians on both sides of the border than if the UN had have acted on its mandate.
In more recent months, US Special Envoy Amos Hochstein has been attempting to mediate a diplomatic solution, with little success.
What about Iran?
Iran is Hezbollah’s patron, and has armed, trained and funded the organisation. Since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, Iran has been religiously opposed to Israel’s existence, and has been building up what it calls a ‘ring of fire’ around Israel. This includes Hezbollah, which it established in 1983, its financing, arming and training of Hamas in recent decades, and its underwriting of the Houthis in Yemen. These three proxies have been attacking Israel since October last year. (Iran has also committed or helped organise countless terrorist attacks against Jewish and Israeli targets across the world since that time.)
Iran itself directly attacked Israel in April this year, with over 300 missiles, rockets and drones. The attack was a response to Israel killing an Iranian commander that was tasked with supporting those three proxy groups’ war against Israel. Israel responded to the attack in April by targeting (without claiming responsibility) a single military installation in Iran. Israel purposefully tried to reduce tension by not only ensuring its response was nowhere near the scale of the Iranian attack, but also by not even claiming it had done so.
The international community didn’t censure Iran in April. Unfortunately, because Iran is ideologically and violently opposed to Israel’s existence, it has always taken encouragement from international and Israeli restraint. The only time Iran backs down is when credible threats are made against it. Restraint and appeasement has never worked with the Islamic Republic.
On 31 July, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed whilst in Iran. Israel has not claimed responsibility, though is widely believed to be responsible. The killing of Haniyeh was not an escalation of the conflict; 7 October—when Hamas invaded Israel, raped, tortured, murdered and mutilated 1200 people, and kidnapped 250 more—was when the conflict escalated.
Israel is bringing to justice those responsible for that massacre, and is removing Hamas from power in Gaza, to prevent it from happening again.
Iran is threatening to again attack Israel, in response to Haniyeh’s death. If Iran attacks Israel, it will be escalating the dispute between them, and risks greater regional warfare. We believe that all governments that have relationships with Iran should be using all available levers to urge Tehran not to attack Israel.
Why will a war between Hezbollah and Israel be terrible?
For Lebanese civilians
Much of Hezbollah’s arsenal is stored in civilian houses in southern Lebanon or in warehouses in urban areas. Hezbollah also operates weapons manufacturing sites in civilian areas.
Doing so is designed to protect these sites from Israeli attack (which, as below in the discussion on relevant laws of armed conflict, it doesn’t). If Israel does attack these sites, doing so will create international opprobrium for Israel for killing civilians – a key Hezbollah strategy, which is also used by Hamas. It is likely that if a full-scale war breaks out, Israel will target all known sites of weapon storage very quicky, to avoid their deployment against Israel. This will likely result in considerable civilian casualties.
Further, Israel will likely damage or destroy roads and bridges that lead to southern Lebanon, to hinder the movement of Hezbollah and other international troops to southern Lebanon. (Many non-Lebanese Shia forces, such as from Afghanistan and even Pakistan, have promised to enter Lebanon to help fight Israel should a war break out. Preventing these forces reaching the front will be important for Israel.)
For Israeli civilians
Hezbollah has an estimated 150,000 rockets and missiles that, according to Hezbollah, can hit every part of Israel. (Rockets are unguided; missiles are guided). Hezbollah’s rocket and missile arsenal is the eight-largest in the world. There are so many of these projectiles, that they would likely overcome Israel’s array of anti-rocket and anti-missile defences (including the Arrow, Iron Dome, David’s Sling and, when it comes online, Iron Beam systems).
Hezbollah also has about 45,000 fighters, of which about 20,000 are full-time fighters.
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These are highly trained, and have war fighting experience—including in sophisticated combined arms fighting—having operated in Syria, alongside Iranian and Russian forces.
What are the relevant laws of armed conflict?
The laws of armed conflict are widely misunderstood, and frequently cited—with great certainty and often incorrectly—by media and political pundits.
The International Committee of the Red Cross maintains a database of customary international humanitarian law (i.e. the laws of armed conflict). You can see the database here. It’s surprisingly readable and understandable.
Here are some of the key principles.
The principle of distinction. Combatants must distinguish between combatants and civilians, with the latter never being targeted. This seems pretty clear cut. However, confusion arises among many commentators because the presence of civilians in or near legitimate military targets does not provide those targets with immunity from attack (see below).
In the same way that a distinction must be made between combatants and civilians, a distinction must also be made between ‘civilian objects’ and ‘military objects’. (A military object is something “which by their nature, location, purpose or use make an effective contribution to military action and whose partial or total destruction, capture or neutralization, in the circumstances ruling at the time, offers a definite military advantage”. A civilian object is everything that isn’t a military object.)
In normal circumstances, a home is, of course, a civilian object and so is immune from attack. But what if the enemy uses that home to make an effective contribution to military action? For instance, they store weapons in it, or conceal the entrance to a tunnel used for military purposes in it? Well, then it switches from being a civilian object to a military object and is thus (subject to the principle of proportionality, below) a valid military target.
Civilian objects always have immunity. Military objects may be attacked, but only if a further principle is applied, the principle of proportionality.
This is one of the most misunderstood principles of the laws of armed conflict, which is why we’ll spend some time analysing it. It is variously, incorrectly, interpreted as being about:
These interpretations are incorrect. Here is how the Red Cross defines it:
“Launching an attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated, is prohibited.”
There are a couple of things to note from this definition:
A complementary principle is the idea that a military should take all feasible precautions to prevent excessive harm to civilians (or damage to civilian objects).
These principles underlie much of the laws of armed conflict. The laws of armed conflict are designed to minimise the impact of war on civilians. However, they are absolutely not expected to prevent harm to civilians.
What is Iran’s involvement?
Iran founded Hezbollah in 1982, and has been a key backer ever since. In 2020, the US State Department estimated that Iran provides Hezbollah with about US$700 million annually (that is, about A$1 billion), which supplements the funds Hezbollah earns through its international drug trafficking and other criminal networks.
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Want to know more about Hezbollah?
Here are some resources for you
