Displacement and dissent: Hezbollah’s war with Israel splits Lebanon’s Shiites

BEIRUT — Since March 2, Lebanon’s Shiite population — largely perceived as Hezbollah’s base — has found itself in the throes of a renewed war between the Iran-backed militia and Israel, as Israel's incursion deepens inside southern Lebanon raising the specter of renewed occupation of the territory. 

Less than two days after the United States and Israel launched attacks on Iran, Hezbollah fired a barrage of rockets toward the Israel, saying the operation was meant to avenge the assassination of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Feb. 28, the war’s opening salvo.

Hezbollah’s core constituency in Lebanon was thus left in a state of strategic and moral uncertainty.

Reactions varied across Lebanon's Shiite community, with some choosing silence and others primarily focusing on protecting their families. At the same time, a growing number of activists, journalists, dissidents and ordinary citizens voiced their opposition to Hezbollah joining the fight, rejecting the idea of having to pay the price for the Iranian government's crisis.

New narratives emerged as the war progressed, with some supporters seeking to frame Hezbollah’s initial attack as a justified response to Israel’s near-daily strikes on Lebanon over the past year, despite a November 2024 ceasefire that ended the previous war between the group and Israel, which began Oct. 8, 2023. Others, meanwhile, touted Hezbollah’s symbolic role as a resistance group to bolster its legitimacy.

The various narratives have deepened divisions within the Shiite community, fueling resentment among others in the country as tens of thousands of people, mostly Shiites, have begun to suffer the social and economic consequences of the war.

From March 2 to March 25, according to Lebanese authorities, Israeli airstrikes across Lebanon killed 1,094 people, including at least 121 children. More than a million people were estimated to have been displaced, with nearly 135,000 of them currently registered in government-designated shelters.

The situation for those who fled their homes was exacerbated by high travel costs, skyrocketing rental prices, and limited access to aid provided by nongovernmental organizations and aid networks, which are scarce on resources and often rely on volunteers.

Local security, not geopolitics

Many within the Shiite community have increasingly rejected being drawn into Hezbollah's external agenda and confrontations, including in support of Hamas in October 2023 and more recently of Iran. 

Major developments — including the killing of Hezbollah’s long-time leader, Hassan Nasrallah, in an Israeli strike in Beirut in September 2024 and the fall of the group’s ally, President Bashar al-Assad, in neighboring Syria in December 2024 — have reinforced calls for a more locally based Shiite leadership, primarily meaning parliament speaker Nabih Berri, rather than one shaped by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

While Berri has generally provided political cover for Hezbollah, his camp has at times also distanced itself from the group. This shift became clear after this month's escalation when, on March 2, the Lebanese cabinet took the strong, unprecedented stance of banning Hezbollah’s military and security activities. The ministers aligned with Berri in the government signed on to the decision.

Dissent has also grown among Shiites at the grassroots level. A video of a woman screaming that her home was "not for sacrifice" after an Israeli strike destroyed it went viral, prompting an online campaign adopting her cry — in Arabic, “Bayti msh fida hada" — as its slogan. The campaign reflected public frustration and opposition to bearing the costs of the conflict. Dissident Shiite figures, including political activist Hadi Mourad, helped amplify the campaign and its message.

"A noteworthy phenomenon is that once Hezbollah launched the six rockets [on March 2], even its most hardened supporters assumed the move to be a so-called Israeli plot or an irresponsible move by a separate faction [within the group]," the Paris-based Lebanese journalist and analyst Mariam Seif told Al-Monitor. "Once Hezbollah took responsibility, the narrative gradually shifted to locating justifications and witch-hunting those who maintained their opposition."

Seif added, "The future of the Shiite sect in Lebanon depends on Hezbollah’s strategic choices. If it maintains its loyalty to the IRGC, we will remain in a status quo of mutual destruction over the next decade. This may produce major displacement patterns for the Shiite sect and severely damage its social fabric." 

'Inevitable war and resistance'

The other perspective among Shiites aligns with Hezbollah’s traditional rhetoric that war with Israel is "inevitable" and driven by a number of factors. These include the belief that under the messianic "Greater Israel" project, Israel is bent on seizing Lebanese land and resources as part of an expansionist geopolitical strategy. To back up this claim, Hezbollah’s core ideological elite cite Israel’s repeated attacks on Lebanon over the past decades.

Hezbollah’s broader support base has another, less ideological view of Israel. While critical of the group’s miscalculation of opening a so-called support front for Hamas on Oct. 8, 2023, after Israel retaliated for the Palestinian group's attack on southern Israel, they nonetheless believe that there is no choice but to support Hezbollah in its efforts to confront Israeli incursions. The pro-Hezbollah analyst Houssam Matar has argued in a post on X that the current war in Lebanon is not in support of the Iranian government but stems from Israel violating the November 2024 ceasefire that ended the fighting that spilled over from the Gaza war.

A gray area and limited alternatives

Many Lebanese occupy a gray area today when it comes to Hezbollah, rejecting the group's adventurism all the while holding the entire ruling class responsible for failing to stop the Israeli attacks over the past 15 months, since the ceasefire, and for failing to ensure the safety of those displaced.

Moe, a Beirut resident whose family hails from the Tyre region and who withheld his full name, laments the government's inaction in addressing the daily Israeli attacks against Lebanon last year, and sectarian divisions.

"The government shouldn't have acted against [the interests] of the Shiite population in the country. This exacerbated the divisions we are seeing today," he told Al-Monitor. "Also, while I reject Hezbollah’s gamble, the government has stood idle in the face of Israeli aggression for months."

The Lebanese state has also been blamed for failing to meet the needs of the displaced population. Dima el-Ayache, an organizer at Beit Aam, a leading community center in Beirut, stresses that grassroots groups remain the most effective first responders, stepping in, as they always have, when the state and ruling class fail to act.

"Free from bureaucracy, they respond quickly, transparently and without discrimination — unlike many official shelters that exclude Palestinians, Syrians and migrant communities," Ayache told Al-Monitor. "Grounded in community networks in Lebanon and the diaspora, they reach the most marginalized and adapt in real time through volunteer efforts, donations and collective support."

With no powerful Shiite or cross-sectarian political alternatives, Hezbollah remains an entrenched political power among Shiites, regardless of its deteriorating status among the Lebanese population and some Shiites.

"Politically, the Shiite population needs a new 'brand.'" the Beirut-based writer and journalist Jad Shahrour told Al-Monitor. "It needs to reflect hard on Hezbollah’s past, without drowning in self-critique. It also needs to play a proactive role in Lebanon's political and state system." 

Israel’s military campaign has taken a big toll on Hezbollah’s leadership and military capacity over the past two years, which has pushed the Shiite community to question the group's future. While the devastation of the current Israel-Lebanon war has sparked genuine criticism of Hezbollah within the Shiite community, Israeli attacks and acts of collective punishment have also reinforced the group’s framing of the conflict, making its narrative more persuasive to a new generation of observers.