What next for Hizbollah?

Staring at the enormous mound of rubble that used to be her home, Mariam Hosni clutched her daughter’s hand, which gripped a picture of Hizbollah’s venerated former leader Hassan Nasrallah, assassinated by Israel as it escalated its offensive two months ago.

The Hosnis’ building in Beirut’s southern suburbs was levelled in the fierce Israeli bombardment that took place shortly before a ceasefire took hold on Wednesday, dashing her hopes of a swift return home. Never mind, she said: “All of this destruction, this is just the price of victory.”

Nasrallah “asked us to be patient and wait for the enemy’s defeat, and of course he was right”, Hosni added, looking around her battered neighbourhood, where some waved Hizbollah flags and sung celebratory songs. “Hizbollah will take care of all of this and will rebuild for us.”

Her faith was echoed by Hizbollah officials and politicians throughout the first 24 hours of the ceasefire, who went into overdrive to trumpet a narrative of “victory” despite the Iran-backed group suffering the most devastating military blow of its four-decade history.

The militant movement agreed to the ceasefire in a significantly weakened state after Israel displayed its overwhelming military superiority and its ability to strike across Lebanon at will.

Around Hizbollah’s heartland of Dahiyeh, as well as southern and eastern Lebanon, signs of the “victory” are hard to spot. Nearly 4,000 people are dead, 16,000 more wounded, civilian infrastructure bombed and dozens of border villages razed in a trail of destruction left by Israeli forces.

This mirrors what the group has endured over the past 10 weeks. Senior commanders and Nasrallah, Hizbollah’s leader of three decades, were killed. Israel’s ground invasion and catastrophic air strikes destroyed its vital supply routes and infrastructure. And to secure a ceasefire, Hizbollah also backed down from its long-standing claim that it would not stop fighting until Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza also ended.

But the truce creates breathing space for Hizbollah, experts and analysts said, allowing it to regroup and strategise ahead of a potentially messy political fight as domestic opponents look to exploit the power vacuum left by its battering.

“I don’t think this vacuum is good for Hizbollah or for anyone in Lebanon,” said Mohanad Hage Ali, an analyst at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut.

Hizbollah will use the truce, which will last an initial 60 days, “to get themselves back together”, he said.

He added that it will also create room for attempts to reconstitute Lebanon’s government, presidency and institutions following a political deadlock that Hizbollah, which with its allies has a blocking minority in parliament, had been key to maintaining. Lebanon’s parliament announced on Thursday that it will elect a president on January 9.

Much is currently unknown about how Hizbollah is operating, and making its decisions. After its leadership was decapitated, the group has kept a lower profile, limiting public appearances in a way that harks back to its earlier days as a guerrilla movement.

Hizbollah will be attempting to find its feet in the absence of Nasrallah, the man who for 30 years was synonymous with the Shia militant movement and helped craft its image, narrative and regional ties, elevating it beyond being a mere Iranian proxy.

With many of its military leaders killed by Israel, experts and analysts say the group’s political wing — previously subordinate to its military arm — might have a larger role to play.

Whereas the two were intentionally kept separate under Nasrallah, “now, they’ll be forced to work together as this is a very new landscape”, said Nancy Ezzeddine, an expert on Hizbollah at Dutch think-tank Clingendael.

The political leadership has “always been just a facade to allow Hizbollah to have a seat in the state”, she said. “They didn’t have the autonomy or capacity to lead the organisation. So as they take on this bigger role, we can expect tensions at least in the first few weeks.” 

A strong leader could help resolve those nascent tensions. But the current choice to lead the group, Nasrallah’s uncharismatic, longtime deputy Naim Qassem — who was previously largely relegated to the group’s cultural activities — is itself a reflection of just how many of its influential figures Israel has killed.

The conflict started last year after Hizbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel following Hamas’s October 7 attack, before Israel launched a full-scale invasion in September.

The US-brokered ceasefire agreement is intended to erode Hizbollah’s ability to operate freely in its bastion of southern Lebanon, barring the group from having a military presence south of the Litani River. Those close to Hizbollah say it is unclear whether that means its fighters — many of whom are residents of villages and towns in the south — would be able to return.

Experts say it is hard to gauge just how much the group has been weakened militarily.

Hizbollah’s ability to continue firing heavier projectile barrages deeper into Israel, including anti-tank missiles and drones, shows it still possesses potent military capabilities. People close to the group also point to its ability to prevent Israel from advancing deep into Lebanon, killing about 50 Israeli soldiers, as proof of its capability.

Kassem Kassir, a Lebanese analyst close to Hizbollah, said that while there was no information on what remained of Hizbollah’s arsenal, its leaders maintained “they have capabilities which were not used”.

But Israel has damaged all major crossing points with Syria, undermining supply routes that connected Hizbollah to Iran and other proxies and would be used to help resupply it.

Israel has said it intends to enforce the deal militarily if it spots Hizbollah trying to rearm. And this, analysts said, is a key reason why the victory narrative is in overdrive: to cover up the extent of their defeat.

Unlike in 2006, when Hizbollah was able to ignore a similar deal that ended a war that year, the group will have to show that it is actively complying with the terms of the ceasefire. The weak Lebanese state — already worn out by a yearlong conflict and festering economic crisis — could pay the price if it does not.

That would open the door to opponents demanding the dismantling of Hizbollah, which remains a powerful representative of the country’s Shias, one of its largest communities, with vast reach into the levers of the state.

Hizbollah’s victory narrative will be embraced for now by its constituency, many of whom will be relieved to be able to start going back home. But the message will be undermined without massive reconstruction, compensation and resumption of social welfare in the face of widespread destruction and displacement.

The Lebanese state cannot foot the bill, and international aid distribution will be complicated in areas still nominally controlled by Hizbollah. It is also unclear whether Hizbollah, or its patron Iran or its network of proxies, will have the money either.

This may create an opening for Hizbollah’s domestic rivals, including Christian leaders who are keen to shift the balance of power in Lebanon’s sectarian power-sharing system in their favour. Challenges to power in Lebanon have often been resolved through violence.

Even if the group may want to lie low for a bit, Clingendael’s Ezzeddine said their opponents could seek to “push Hizbollah to the brink, to destabilise the grip on power the group has long displayed”.

Additional reporting by James Shotter in Jerusalem and Malaika Kanaaneh Tapper in Beirut