The Rise of Hezbollah, Mapped

- [Johnny] Look at this map, this map shows the thousands of attacks that have occurred right here on this border just over the past year in this fight between Israel and one of their biggest regional enemies, Hezbollah. Hezbollah is one of the biggest armed groups in the world that isn't a nation's military. They have tens of thousands of trained soldiers and hundreds of thousands of missiles and rockets capable of reaching targets all across Israel.

This threat led Israel to conduct a massive set of attacks against Hezbollah. - [Reporter] This large explosion was seen near Beirut International Airport. - [Johnny] In which they killed almost all of the group's top leaders weakening Hezbollah immensely, followed by a full on invasion by Israeli troops to denigrate this group even further.

This has been a massive escalation that is now spilling over into this entire region. And to understand how we got here, you really have to understand where Hezbollah came from and what this group's fierce 40 year struggle tells us about how the modern Middle East came together and how it's now coming apart. (upbeat music) The geopolitics of the Middle East is complicated and sensitive, and there's a lot going on right now, which makes navigating the news pretty difficult, which is why I'm glad that the sponsor of today's video exists.

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Thank you for existing and doing this very important work. And with that, let's get back to this very important and timely story of the rise of Hezbollah. (upbeat music) The story of Hezbollah really starts when the vast Ottoman Empire broke apart in the early 1900s.

Europeans came in and sliced all of this up, France taking all of this territory, but then they drew a line here to carve out this little mountainous region, one that was populated mostly by Maronite Christians, but the border didn't include just Christians. The French made sure to include this area to the east and this area to the south. Areas that contained large populations of Shiite Muslims who were now forced into this new country where they were made a minority to the Christians along with a few other religious groups, we're gonna focus a lot down here on this Shiite heartland that would eventually become one of the most important regions in the whole Middle East.

(suspense music) In 1943, Lebanon gains its independence from France. It creates a constitution meant to balance the power between all of these religious groups, but that balance wouldn't last. Mostly thanks to what started happening down here where another set of borders were being carved into the Middle East.

The British had controlled this, but in 1948, they left and the UN helped draw these new lines, creating a new Israel and Palestinian state. Decades of war forced out millions of Palestinians, many of whom ended up here in Lebanon. These Palestinians are mostly Sunni Muslim, so this upsets the carefully laid power balance in Lebanon and further marginalizes the Shiite Muslims who were fighting for their place in the country.

Then in 1971, an armed militia made up of Palestinians called the Palestinian Liberation Organization moves to Lebanon, and they turn this whole region, which again was made up of mostly Shiites into their own little mini state. You start to see that Lebanon is descending into division between the different militias and powers controlling parts of the country. And in the mid 70s, it all breaks down into a full fledged civil war between a dizzying number of religious factions.

It's a war that will pull in much of the Middle East, and it's a war whose most important region is down here in this border zone between Israel and Lebanon. The place that will soon give rise to Hezbollah. Now, let's talk about Syria.

They're here right next door, and they're watching this civil war and they decide to invade, to prop up the Mario Knight Christian ruling class who've become Syria allies. They want to do this to prevent the Civil War from spilling over into their territory. At this point, Syria also considers annexing the entire country of Lebanon, making it a part of Syria.

But eventually, the relationship between Syria and Maronite Christians breaks down, and Syria continues to occupy this part of the country. Meanwhile, to the South Israel fears that Syria is growing too powerful. It also wants to wipe out the PLO, who is attacking them across the border from Lebanon.

So in 1978, Israel enters the fray invading from the south and driving deep into the country. Israel succeeds in temporarily suppressing the PLO, but in the process it displaces hundreds of thousands of locals, most of them Shiite Muslims. (suspense music) It eventually withdraws after a UN resolution.

But then in 1982, after more PLO attacks, Israel invades again this time, pushing all the way to Beirut, fighting both the PLO and Syria. And this is where the conflict takes on a new dimension. (upbeat music) It's 1979 and over in Iran, the people have risen up against the US backed dictator in this Islamic revolution led by a Shiite Muslim cleric who wants to spread this revolution throughout the region.

He's looking for allies, and in 1982, they find their perfect match. Here in southern Lebanon, it's a militia that rose to defend against outsiders trampling their heartland. It's called the Hezbollah, which means party of God.

Iran picked this group in particular because it shares its goals of Islamic Revolution and a deep distrust and disdain for Israel. Iran starts providing Hezbollah with money, weapons, soldiers, training and leadership. And in return, Hezbollah proclaims loyalty to the Iranian revolution and its supreme leader.

What started as Lebanon's civil War is now a regional war that is heating up. So the United States enters leading an international peacekeeping mission to try to calm these tensions. But of course, Hezbollah and Iran hate this.

They now have two prime targets in their backyard, Israel, and these western powers led by the US. So in 1983, they launched a series of terrorist attacks, a truck bomb detonated in front of a US and French barracks in Beirut that kills over 300 people. Most of the world blames not only Hezbollah, but also its backer, Iran.

The fighting continues until 1989 when the many groups fighting this civil war come to a peace agreement, one that bans all militias and requires them to give their weapons back to the government. But there's a big catch here. Israel still occupies what they call this security buffer zone in Southern Lebanon.

So the peace agreement makes an exception specifically for efforts that resist the Israeli occupation, AKA, they allow Hezbollah to continue to exist, turning them into something more than just one of these militias fighting for their group. It gives them a kind of official status to continue acting as a defender of Southern Lebanon, the country's bulwark against Israel. They also develop into more of a political party that gains seats in Lebanon's legislature, kind of serving as a parallel government providing social services in the areas that it controls.

(dramatic music) So let's look at Hezbollah in this moment, because they find themselves in the middle of shifting power games in the Middle East, balancing their mandate to defend their Shia heartland, which was their founding motivation, but also trying to gain further influence in the region while also appeasing the demands of their major supporter, Iran. In 2005, Lebanon's prime minister is assassinated, and most Lebanese blame Hezbollah, along with its other foreign supporters, Syria, Lebanese people rise up in mass protest, and Syria eventually withdraws its forces that have occupied Lebanon for 28 years. Hezbollah is disgraced.

Its legitimacy is supposed to come from resisting foreign meddling, and it's becoming clear that they have become a pawn in the geopolitical game of regional powers, Syria and Iran. But the group is able to turn Syria's withdrawal into their advantage. The Syrian occupation had kept Lebanon somewhat stable, so as soon as they left, it creates this power vacuum and allows Hezbollah to take more territory, ramping up attacks across the border against Israel and leading to another brief war with the IDF.

Hezbollah continues to be a useful proxy for Iran, and Iran continues to fund them and arm them. And by 2011, Iran and Syria pull Hezbollah into another unpopular conflict, Syria's civil war. But this hurts Hezbollah's reputation because now they're fighting on behalf of Syria's brutal Iran-backed regime.

These once liberators have turned into foot soldiers of oppression doing the bidding of outsiders. But its last source of legitimacy continues to be its resistance to Israel, something that Lebanon's own government is too weak to do. This remains their source of legitimacy today.

So on October 7th, 2023, when Hamas and Israel descended into this most recent war, Hezbollah jumped in, launching more attacks against Lebanon southern border. This is meant to support Hamas in the Gaza Strip and to threaten Israel with a war on two fronts. At first, it seemed to be working.

Tens of thousands of Israelis have had to evacuate the towns and villages in northern Israel. So Israel started firing back across the border, forcing 90,000 people in southern Lebanon from their homes. This, in addition to Israeli strikes on Iranian proxies and military officials led Iran to fire its first ever direct strike on Israel, trying to deter it from going any further, but it didn't work.

In September of 2024, Israel escalated, surprising Hezbollah with a series of attacks that killed a large part of the group's top leadership, including their decades long leader. A few days later, Israel sent troops across this border with the goal of further weakening Hezbollah, trying to make the situation safe for Israelis to return home to the north of the country. And now with Hezbollah and shambles, its sponsor, Iran felt compelled to act.

(missiles exploding) - [Onlooker] Oh, Jesus. - [Danna] What we are all seeing with our own eyes is a major attack from Iran. - [Onlooker] It's a major attack, Danna, and it's an escalation.

It's an escalation- - [Johnny] So even if Hezbollah eventually begins to rebuild itself, it's unclear what role they will play in Iran's proxy network. But what is clear is that the clash between these two Middle East powers remains the central force animating this region towards more and more violence. And these recent events show us clearer than ever that Hezbollah was just one foot soldier in this growing conflict between these two powers.