Hezbollah, the Arsonist Firefighter

If there were an award for mythomania and manipulation, Hezbollah would win it hands down. The group has become a master at distorting reality and manipulating its own support base.

This group is responsible for Israel’s occupation of a large part of southern Lebanon, the destruction of numerous villages and agricultural areas, and thousands of deaths and displacements in a war imposed on the people of southern Lebanon – at times in support of Hamas, at others to avenge an Iranian ayatollah. Yet the group is once again casting itself as the savior of its own victims, among them residents of southern Lebanon and Beirut’s southern suburbs.

But make no mistake. Tuesday’s announcement of a financial assistance program for displaced people whose homes have been destroyed is aimed primarily at calming a support base that is beginning to show signs of growing discontent and frustration.

The maximum assistance amounts to $14,000 for homes in Beirut and its southern suburbs, and $12,000 for homes elsewhere.

The package also includes $8,000 in furniture assistance, the same amount across all regions, and rental assistance of $6,000 in the capital and its southern suburbs, compared with $4,000 in other regions.

These amounts are the same as those set for housing assistance after the devastating 2024 war waged in support of Palestinian Hamas. Each beneficiary will receive the allocated amount in four installments over the course of a year.

The announcement, made by Hezbollah Executive Council Chairman Sheikh Ali Daamouche at a news conference in Beirut’s southern suburbs, nevertheless raises a series of questions, particularly about the possible rebuilding of the financial and paramilitary capabilities of a group that takes orders solely from Iran.

It comes just days after Reuters reported that Tehran had transferred $200 million to Hezbollah’s military arm in Lebanon. Washington, which is working to cut off funding sources for both Hezbollah and Iran, has cast doubt on the reports, but the housing assistance announcement appears to lend them credence. It also raises anew the question of the extent of the resources at the group’s disposal. Sheikh Daamouche did not disclose where the funds for the assistance would come from or specify the overall budget allocated to the program. Yet it is hard to imagine the group making promises it cannot keep at a time when it is beginning to face a backlash within its own support base.

Other questions arise. Through what channels will the aid be disbursed? Will it be channeled through Qard al-Hasan, Hezbollah’s illegal financial institution, which the state should have shut down long ago and which is subject to US sanctions?

How did the money earmarked for this program reach Hezbollah? Was it brought in through the same clandestine networks and smuggling routes used to supply the group with hundreds of tons of explosives? The question is all the more pertinent given that, just two days apart, the announcement coincided with the seizure of nearly a ton of TNT, C4 and other explosive materials in Dahr el-Baydar and the Hermel region, along the Syrian border. This timing may not be enough to establish a link between the two events, but it underscores the importance of questions that the authorities should, in principle, be able to answer.

These are just some of the challenges facing a state that Sheikh Daamouche sought to disparage during his news conference, through unfounded criticism and unrestrained threats. He accused the state of “failing to preserve Lebanese sovereignty” – a sovereignty his own party tramples on daily because of its allegiance to Tehran.