Hezbollah

[88] According to Shapira, the lightly armed Shia fighters managed to capture an Israeli armored vehicle on that day and paraded it in the Revolutionary Guards' forward operating base in Baalbek, Eastern Lebanon.

Some of the Shia fighters had torn off pieces of their shirts and wrapped them around their heads as bands of martyrdom as the Iranian revolutionary guards had begun doing a year before when they staged their first mass attacks against the Iraqis in the Gulf War a thousand miles to the east.

The group receives substantial financial and military backing from Iran,[110][111] positioning itself as the leading member of the "Axis of Resistance", an alliance in opposition to Israel and Western influence in the Middle East.

As for our culture, it is based on the Holy Quran, the Sunna and the legal rulings of the faqih who is our source of imitation ...[124]On 30 November 2009, secretary-general Nasrallah presented a new manifesto at Hezbollah's 7th political conference.

[59] While self-described as a "rebirth" document, the manifesto conveys the same basic approach to foreign policy as in the past, according to scholar Benedetta Berti, though it is more "politically savvy" and appeals to non-Islamic movements.

Like the Hamas propaganda for holy war, that of Hezbollah has relied on the endless vilification of Jews as 'enemies of mankind,' 'conspiratorial, obstinate, and conceited' adversaries full of 'satanic plans' to enslave the Arabs.

[135]Conflicting reports say Al-Manar, the Hezbollah-owned and operated television station, accused either Israel or Jews of deliberately spreading HIV and other diseases to Arabs throughout the Middle East.

[145] This was after Hezbollah's member of Lebanese parliament Hussein Hajj Hassan, interviewed on the organization's Al-Manar television channel, criticized the school for "showing poor judgment in picking out its textbooks", and asked how long Lebanon would "remain an open arena for the Zionist invasion of education".

[152] During the late 1980s, when there was three-digit inflation in Lebanon due to the collapse of the Lira, the British periodical Middle East International reported that Hezbollah was receiving $3–5 million per month from Iran.

[155][156][157] In 2009, when the United States GAO agency accused members of the Venezuelan government of "not cooperating fully in the war on drug trafficking" and claimed that "drug corruption had reached the ministerial level in Venezuela", Dorit Shavit, then in charge of Latin America & Caribbean affairs at the Israeli foreign ministry, stated in El Tiempo that the presence of "cells of Hezbollah guerrillas" had increased in recent years in the Guajira Peninsula and on the island of Margarita.

[159] Hezbollah has relied also on funding from the Shi'ite Lebanese Diaspora in West Africa, the United States and, most importantly, the Triple Frontier, or tri-border area, along the junction of Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil.

[179] Hezbollah-led opposition fighters seized control of several West Beirut neighborhoods from Future Movement militiamen loyal to the backed government, in street battles that left 11 dead and 30 wounded.

With possible help from Iran and the Russian FSB, Hezbollah augmented its electronic counterintelligence capabilities, and succeeded in 2008 in detecting Israeli bugs near Mount Sannine and in the organization's fiber optic network.

"This kind of experience cannot be bought", said Gabi Siboni, director of the military and strategic affairs program at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University.

[232] The Lebanese cabinet, under president Michel Suleiman and Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, guidelines state that Hezbollah enjoys the right to "liberate occupied lands".

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the report "further corroboration of what we have already known, that Hezbollah and its Iranian patrons are orchestrating a worldwide campaign of terror that is spanning countries and continents".

[287] John Brennan, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, has said that, "Bulgaria's investigation exposes Hezbollah for what it is—a terrorist group that is willing to recklessly attack innocent men, women and children, and that poses a real and growing threat not only to Europe, but to the rest of the world.

[295] On 30 June 2011, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, established to investigate the death of Hariri, issued arrest warrants against four senior members of Hezbollah, including Mustafa Badreddine.

[319] Vox writes that following the adoption of the Patriot Act in 2001, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) would promote the term of narcoterrorism and arrest individuals with no prior history of being involved in terrorism, suggesting skepticism towards the reports of large-scale collusion between alleged terrorist groups and cartels.

[319] Southern Pulse director and analyst Samuel Logan said "Geopolitical proximity to Tehran doesn't directly translate into leniency of Hezbollah activity inside your country" in an interview with the Pulitzer Center.

[331] William Neuman in his 2022 book Things Are Never So Bad That They Can't Get Worse said that claims of Hezbollah's presence in Latin America was "in reality, minimal", writing that the Venezuelan opposition raised such allegations to persuade the United States into believing that the nation faced a threat from Venezuela in an effort to promote foreign intervention.

[338] The organization had recruited a former resident of Minnesota and a military linguist, Mariam Tala Thompson, who disclosed "identities of at least eight clandestine human assets; at least 10 U.S. targets; and multiple tactics, techniques and procedures" before she was discovered and successfully prosecuted in a U.S.

[339] In 2010, Ahbash and Hezbollah members were involved in a street battle which was perceived to be over parking issues, both groups later met to form a joint compensation fund for the victims of the conflict.

[340] According to Reuters, in 2024, commanders from Hezbollah and Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps were reported to be involved in Yemen, overseeing and directing Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping.

[384][385] According to a survey released by the "Beirut Center for Research and Information", of 800 citizens polled between 24 and 26 July 2006, during the 2006 Lebanon War, "showed 87 percent support for Hizbullah's [sic] retaliatory attacks on northern Israel".

Hezbollah's operations outside of Lebanon, including its participation in bombings of Israeli and Jewish targets in Argentina during the 1990s and more recent training and liaison activities with Shiite insurgents in Iraq, have cemented the organization's reputation among U.S. policy makers as a capable and deadly adversary with potential global reach.

[464] Prior to the release of the list, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov called "on Hezbollah to stop resorting to any terrorist methods, including attacking neighboring states".

[492] In March 2016, Gulf Cooperation Council designated Hezbollah as a terrorist organization due to its alleged attempts to undermine GCC states, and Arab League followed the move, with reservation by Iraq and Lebanon.

"[499] Following the 2006 War, other Lebanese including members of the government were resentful of the large damage sustained by the country and saw Hezbollah's actions as unjustified "dangerous adventurism" rather than legitimate resistance.

Congress members Tom Lantos, Jim Saxton, Thad McCotter, Chris Shays, Charles Boustany, Alcee Hastings, and Robert Wexler referred to Hezbollah as a terrorist organization in their speeches supporting the legislation.

Organizational chart of Hezbollah, by Ahmad Nizar Hamzeh
Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah , the third Secretary General of Hezbollah
Nasrallah visiting Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in Tehran, August 2005
Hezbollah-controlled areas in July 2006 (most of Lebanon's majority Shi'a areas )
A December 2006 anti-government rally in Beirut
Hezbollah fighters in southern Lebanon, May 2023
Hezbollah members and supporters parade following the end of the Israeli occupation of Southern Lebanon , May 2000
Hezbollah posters in the aftermath of the 2006 Lebanon War
Arrival of fuel from Iran to Lebanon in September 2021
Protesters in Kuala Lumpur , Malaysia, with a Hezbollah flag in September 2012
Graves of killed Hezbollah members at a mausoleum in Beirut