Lebanon’s Shiites increasingly reject role of scapegoat in Hezbollah’s war on Israel
Over 1.4 million Lebanese from Hezbollah’s support base have fled their homes. And while the terror group attempts to retain their loyalty, some are calling for its demise
Gianluca Pacchiani is the Arab affairs reporter for The Times of Israel
Ahmad Yassine, a Lebanese Shiite commentator with a large following on the social media platform X, wrote last Thursday that Hezbollah’s new leader, Naim Qassem, signaled the group’s capitulation as a military force in his latest address last week.
“It was clear to anyone who heard the pre-recorded speech that it was a declaration of complete surrender,” Yassine wrote. “Hezbollah has fallen, all it has to do now is announce the date of the funeral,” he wrote.
While Yassine’s remarks accord with the group’s heavily diminished military capabilities and decimated leadership, not everyone within Hezbollah’s Shiite support base shares his conclusion — despite bearing the brunt of Israel’s ongoing escalation against the Iran-backed organization.
Over 1.4 million people — nearly a quarter of Lebanon’s population — have fled their homes since Hezbollah initiated hostilities against Israel on October 8, 2023, according to recent figures published by the UN quoting Lebanese government data.
The overwhelming majority of those currently displaced fled after Israel escalated strikes two months ago, targeting largely Shiite Hezbollah strongholds across southern Lebanon, the eastern Beqaa Valley, and Beirut’s Dahiyeh district. In the first 11 months of the conflict that Hezbollah instigated, approximately 110,000 Lebanese had evacuated.
“Shiites were historically the underdog of Lebanon,” said Nagi Najjar, a former intelligence officer during the Lebanese Civil War and a former CIA consultant now based in the US.
The community was politically marginalized in the four centuries under the Sunni-dominated Ottoman empire, while the subsequent French mandate tended to favor Christians in its administration. In addition, Shiites traditionally inhabit rural areas in the south and the Beqaa Valley, regions neglected in terms of economic development.
“Thanks to Hezbollah, [Shiites] have risen to prominence, controlling political power and amassing wealth. They will not easily turn their backs on Hezbollah,” Najjar told The Times of Israel.
A country on the brink of economic collapse
Among the displaced in the ongoing escalation, about 560,000 people — primarily Syrian refugees — fled to Syria, while over 875,000 remain internally displaced, according to a recent UN report citing Lebanese government data.
The internal refugee crisis has exacerbated Lebanon’s ongoing economic collapse. The World Bank estimated two weeks ago that the conflict has cost Lebanon $8.5 billion — $3.4 billion in direct physical damage and $5.1 billion in lost revenue from commerce, tourism, and agriculture.
Lebanon’s economy, already in free fall for years, registered 44% of its population below the poverty line before the outbreak of the war — a figure that has tripled over the past decade, according to the World Bank.
While Lebanon does not collect census data on the religious affiliation of its citizens to avoid upsetting its delicate power-sharing agreement among communities, the CIA Factbook estimates Shiites comprise 31% of the population.
Many Shiites remain in areas targeted by Israeli strikes, while wealthier individuals have fled abroad. The majority, however, are internally displaced, with only 20% finding shelter in the 1,250 government-established facilities, according to government sources quoted by the Lebanese paper L’Orient Le Jour (OLJ). Most others are said to have sought refuge with relatives or rented homes, often at highly inflated prices.
The World Bank has estimated that the short-term food security needs for the internally displaced amounts to $131 million a month – a sum that the government has not yet disbursed as its coffers are under strain, according to government officials quoted by the Lebanese paper.
With government resources stretched thin, Hezbollah has stepped in to provide financial aid and promises of reconstruction. Sources within the group quoted by OLJ report that many families have received $7,000 per household, along with assurances that destroyed homes will be rebuilt.
The terror group is going to great lengths to maintain ties with its support base, and still operates a vast network of charities.
The specter of a new civil war
Lebanon lives under the trauma of the brutal 1975-1990 civil war that tore the country apart along religious divides and left some 150,000 people dead.
Today’s mass displacement of Shiites into areas dominated by other religious denominations threatens to reignite political and social conflict, as host communities fear that accommodating Hezbollah members hiding among the displaced may invite Israeli strikes.
While caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati — a Sunni Muslim — has stressed the importance of maintaining “civil peace,” and even Hezbollah’s rivals, including the Christian Lebanese Forces party, have largely complied by moderating their political rhetoric and urging supporters not to stoke tensions, the danger on the ground remains.
Residents recently told Reuters that conflict often centers around schools that have welcomed displaced people. Hezbollah-allied parties are said to have seized control of who comes and goes and what enters some of those institutions.
Sectarian tensions have resurfaced regularly in recent years, and some analysts have already warned of a possible outbreak of a new civil war.
Hezbollah expert Matthew Levitt, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, recently told The Times of Israel that as the terror group loses ground on the battlefield, it may resort to using guns to maintain its grip over Lebanon.
Some pundits have warned that a marginalization of Hezbollah from the Lebanese political scene after it is defanged militarily could have strong repercussions on Hezbollah’s Shiite support base.
“The community is traumatized, dislocated, and heavily armed, without a leader capable of controlling the widespread resentment and humiliation Shiites must feel as the only community targeted by Israel,” wrote Michael Young, a Beirut-based Lebanon expert for the Carnegie Endowment, in a recent commentary.
“Hezbollah will spread a narrative that they [Lebanese politicians] exploited the Israeli onslaught to once again marginalize Shiites, and this message will allow Hezbollah to absorb and redirect internally the anger many in the community must feel for having lost everything,” he added.
Growing discontent with Hezbollah among some Shiites
Hezbollah has positioned itself as the defender of Shiites, capitalizing on the community’s anger and vulnerability to maintain loyalty.
However, prominent voices within the Shiite community are challenging the terror group’s authority, echoing the criticism of several Lebanese Christian leaders.
Prominent Lebanese Shia cleric Ali al-Amin, a longstanding thorn in the side of Hezbollah, has consistently called for the terror group to disarm and hand control to the Lebanese state.
In a recent interview with the Saudi al-Arabiya channel, al-Amin argued that Hezbollah is a permanent threat to stability, and its actions have endangered Lebanon without benefiting Gaza.
In a video address on November 14 published on his website, the cleric praised Lebanon as a “model of coexistence based on openness and tolerance among the various religious groups,” and condemned “those who took advantage of the weakness of the Lebanese state to establish mini-states.”
“As long as there are weapons outside the control of the state, there will always be unrest,” he said.
