Hamas and Hezbollah: Growing coordination in Lebanon?

A recent rocket barrage from Lebanon across its southern border with Israel — the most intense in nearly seventeen years — could demonstrate growing coordination between Hezbollah and Hamas, analysts say. 

Over 30 rockets were launched on 6 April from areas controlled by Hezbollah in Lebanon’s south. Hezbollah likely authorised the rocket fire, experts say, as an attack of this size would hardly have gone unnoticed in its backyard.

Israel responded by launching strikes on alleged Hamas targets in Lebanon and Gaza, a deliberate choice to avoid igniting a wider conflict with Hezbollah.

The Lebanese group has neither endorsed nor criticised the rocket fire from Lebanon. While no group has officially claimed responsibility, security and UNIFIL sources say Palestinian groups were behind the incident.

"A recent rocket barrage from Lebanon across its southern border with Israel — the most intense in nearly seventeen years — could demonstrate growing coordination between Hezbollah and Hamas, analysts say"

“It shows that Hezbollah wants to keep its narrative of resistance against Israel, while at the same time, [Hezbollah] doesn’t want to look like it’s part of a provocative action,” said Sami Nader, the director of the Beirut-based Levant Institute for Strategic Affairs.

The Lebanese group wanted to avoid an Israeli retaliation on its assets, which would propel them to respond and risk the outbreak of another war - a catastrophic outcome for Lebanon as it faces one of the world’s worst economic crises.

Hezbollah has emerged as the country’s most powerful political actor, seizing more opportunities to expand in the last three years of an economic crisis.

But another war, which the country’s current economic capacity could not sustain, would undermine the group’s image as a legitimate threat to Israel — a significant driver of the party’s domestic support, said Hilal Khashan, a professor of political science at the American University of Beirut (AUB).

“Hamas does in Lebanon what Hezbollah can no longer do,” Khashan told The New Arab. 

Hezbollah is instead sticking to a “policy of silence” regarding Israel’s retaliatory strikes, the party’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, said in a televised speech on Friday.

Nasrallah also warned in the speech that Israel’s “reckless actions in Jerusalem” might lead the region to a “major war”.

The military component of Hezbollah’s anti-Israel stance has expired, Khashan said. “Hezbollah will continue to criticise Israel, condemn Israel, and disseminate anti-Israeli propaganda, but it will not take military action…,” he added.

Hamas-Hezbollah ties grow

Hamas — which had become isolated in parts of the Arab world — in recent years has increasingly turned to Iran for support.

Some of the group’s leadership reportedly left Qatar following the 2017 Saudi-led blockade and Turkey after its rapprochement with Israel, and so has turned to Lebanon, now largely under the control of Iran-backed Hezbollah, according to the Carnegie Middle East Center.

The warming of Hezbollah-Hamas ties breaks away from a decade-long period of estrangement due to the groups’ backing of opposing sides in the Syrian war, but last year Hamas announced it was restoring ties with the regime of Bashar al-Assad.

"It shows that Hezbollah wants to keep its narrative of resistance against Israel, while at the same time, [Hezbollah] doesn't want to look like it's part of a provocative action"

Lebanon’s refugee camps, particularly those in Hezbollah’s southern territory, are a “safe haven” for Hamas, as well as other Palestinian organisations, noted Khashan.

According to Israeli media reports, quoted by the Atlantic Council, Hezbollah recently permitted the deployment of four hundred Palestinians affiliated with Hamas, from refugee camps, along the Israeli border — another potential sign of strengthening coordination between the groups.

And as Hezbollah and Hamas have ramped up coordination, visits between the two leaders have become more frequent.

The recent rocket fire occurred during Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh’s visit to Lebanon, where he met with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and discussed “the readiness of the Axis of Resistance and the cooperation of its parties”.

Iran threatens Israel during a period of 'weakness'

The rocket fire from Lebanon was catalysed by Israeli attacks on Palestinian worshipers inside East Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque and took place amid unprecedented anti-government protests in Israel.

The timing may reflect a deliberate targeting of Israel during a period of weakness, Nader said.

“Iran wants to show that they still have the capability to threaten Israel and its security,” Nader said, which Tehran does through playing its various “instruments they have on demand”, including Hezbollah, Hamas, and other armed Palestinian groups.

Lebanon’s southern border has been tumultuous over the past few months.

Notable among recent incidents was Israel’s shooting of a man suspected to have connections with Hezbollah, who supposedly infiltrated the country from Lebanon and blew up a car in the northern Israeli city of Megiddo.

Two days following the rocket fire from Lebanon, two rounds of rockets were also launched from Syria into Israel.

The armed wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement, Al Quds Brigades, another Iran-backed group, claimed responsibility for the attacks.

“It looks like Iranian missiles are encircling Israel,” Nader stated. 

Iran used the violence at al-Aqsa as a “justification” for the latest attacks, Nader said, but they were more likely a retaliation for Israel’s assassination of two Iranian military advisers in Syria.

Hezbollah's 'illusion' of resistance

Following its role in ending Israel’s 18-year occupation of southern Lebanon, Hezbollah has used the concept of resistance to build its political base in the country, solidifying gains through anti-Israel messaging and displays of military strength.

With ample Iranian support, the group has built a hefty armed wing; in 2020 it was estimated to have up to twenty thousand active fighters and some twenty thousand reserves, with an arsenal of small drones, tanks, and long-range rockets — labelled “the world’s most heavily armed non-state actor” in a 2018 Center for Strategic and International Studies report.

But given the state of Lebanon’s degraded economy, if a war were to break out Israel could deliver a “near fatal blow” to the group, Khashan said. 

“Hezbollah spreads the illusion that there is a balance of power with Israel, which doesn’t exist”, he added. “They’d rather maintain this illusion”.

"Iran wants to show that they still have the capability to threaten Israel and its security"

Hezbollah’s leader Nasrallah told crowds during a televised speech last Friday that the group’s strength had deterred Israel from retaliating on a larger scale, and that Hezbollah would respond “without hesitation” to any security incident from Israel that occurred in Lebanon’s territory.

But the group is likely unwilling to openly instigate an armed conflict.

“Lebanese do not want a scenario similar to what happened in 2006,” Nader said. During the war with Israel, over 1,200 Lebanese were killed and one million displaced, while an eight-week naval blockade was a huge blow to the country’s economy.

Hezbollah’s likely involvement in the recent rocket fire has already sparked fury among some Lebanese, fearful of another war. The incident has even drawn flak from Hezbollah’s allies, including the group's Shia ally, the Amal movement, Nader said.

If Hezbollah were to become involved in another conflict, the group would be “jeopardising its achievement during the past three decades”, Khashan said, referencing the anger that might arise from the group's now expansive power base. 

Hanna Davis is a freelance journalist reporting on politics, foreign policy, and humanitarian affairs.

Follow her on Twitter: @hannadavis341