It is a condition of life in Lebanon that unresolved political tensions, simmering perennially beneath the surface, need only a small spark to erupt. The events of 13 April 1975, seen as the start of the brutal Lebanese Civil War, was one such spark. It destroyed the country in the following 15 years and haunting it ever since. It was a Sunday morning, and the Beirut Church of Notre Dame was hosting a high-profile family baptism, as well as the leader of one of Lebanon’s powerful Christian parties and militias, Kataeb.
Outside the church, a scuffle broke out between a group of Palestinians and Kataeb militiamen. The argument became violent and a Palestinian was shot dead, leading to a retaliatory drive-by shooting that killed four people, including the father of the baptised child, as the congregation exited the church.
The carnage that ended the day’s retaliatory killings is etched into the minds of all Lebanese: as fighting spread across the city, Kataeb militants gunned down a bus filled with pro-Palestine activists, killing 28 onboard as they travelled to one of the country’s Palestinian refugee camps. What followed was a Lebanese Civil War that would ravage the nation for years, leaving 150,000 dead and many thousands more displaced.
Reflecting the mosaic of the country’s many religious and political communities, as well as its vulnerability to its more powerful neighbours, the Lebanese civil war, which ended in 1990, was very much several conflicts in one. It was not a case of Muslims vs Christians, but rather a split between those who supported Palestinians in Lebanon (or not), and made worse by lsraeli, Syrian, US, French, Soviet or Iranian interference. The war left no clear winner, leading to a delicate, uneasy and ongoing power-sharing agreement between Lebanon’s 18 officially recognised religious groups.
Now, following weeks of fierce Israeli airstrikes that have displaced 1.2 million people and killed more than 2,000, there is a growing fear that renewed sectarian violence could once more break out in Lebanon, a country that was already on its economic and political knees (it has not had a president and functioning government since 2022).
At present, the war is disproportionately affecting Lebanon’s Shia community, the main support base of the Iran-backed Hezbollah, which is also the most powerful faction in Lebanon’s democratically elected parliament. However, if the conflict drags on, its material and economic cost could devastate all communities. Already, the country’s fragile healthcare system is on the brink of collapse.
“There are currently hundreds of thousands of displaced Lebanese people, mostly Shia, looking for refuge in different parts of Lebanon,” said Dania Dagher, a Lebanese doctor in Beirut, who asked to be identified by a pseudonym out of fear that her words might be perceived as anti-Hezbollah. While different communities usually live peacefully side-by-side across Lebanon, the country remains quite territorially segregated along religious lines, meaning there are fears that these abrupt demographic changes could ignite sectarian fault lines. “[Community tensions] are holding for now, but what happens if the war goes on for months and much more of Lebanon is collectively destroyed?” She asked. “What happens when patience and aid money runs out, and the cold winter kicks in for the displaced?”
The country has already seen some early signs of social fracturing, such as reports of people barring displaced Shia families from renting their homes for fear of becoming targets of Israeli drones (and possibly out of sheer discrimination too). Videos of arguments between displaced Shia families and residents of certain predominantly Christian and Sunni neighbourhoods have also circulated on social media.
Following Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, on 27 September, videos went viral showing some Lebanese cheering and mocking his death, with small crowds jubilating in Sunni-dominated Tripoli, the country’s second-largest city.
“As displaced people mix into new communities, a handful of partisans are clashing with other partisans, usually men,” said Paul Salem, the vice-president for international engagement at the Middle East Institute. “But the fear is that, while these confrontations are smaller than the unity we’re seeing, they propagate on social media. If it bleeds it leads. I worry about an escalation from these isolated incidents.”
If the war drags on, there is also a fear that individuals from the anti-Hezbollah factions, namely Kataeb and Lebanese Forces, might start targeting internally displaced Shia communities, says Nasser Elamine, a Lebanese analyst and researcher. He also worries that a rogue, or intentional, Israel Defence Forces (IDF) air strike on Lebanon’s Christian heartlands, such as Kiserwan, could lead to a violent response against Hezbollah and its supporters from certain Christian militias. Already, Israel’s recent air strike on Marjayoun, in southern Lebanon, has shaken the majority Christian town, which had been spared in previous conflicts. The attack hit two ambulances at the town’s main hospital, killing seven paramedics.
Such violence could be cynically calculated. It’s in both Israel and Syria’s interests to ignite sectarian tensions in Lebanon, according to Nadim Shehadi, a Lebanese political analyst and a fellow at Chatham House. “We’ve seen it many times before. Remember when former Lebanese minister, Michel Samaha, was caught bringing explosives from Syria in 2012 to provoke sectarian tensions?” Samaha, who had close ties to the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, was convicted of plotting assassinations to raise sectarian tensions in Lebanon with the help of Syrian security services.
In the same vein, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s televised message to the Lebanese on 8 October is the strongest sign yet that Israel wants to push Lebanon towards internal collapse. “Stand up and take your country back from [Hezbollah terrorists]. You have a once-in-a-decade opportunity to save Lebanon before it [turns into] the destruction we see in Gaza,” implored the Israeli PM. This leaves the Lebanese with two grim options: either face the fate of Gaza or be drawn into civil war.
For now, however, Lebanon’s diverse communities are, for the most part, coming together to support the country’s displaced, with citizens opening their homes and volunteers working around the clock to support the most vulnerable. Although Lebanon’s parliament remains split between the carousel of Hezbollah’s supporters and detractors – as has been the case for more than two decades – public criticism of Hezbollah has been fairly muted over the last few weeks.
“At the moment it seems that this full-scale war is provisionally uniting Shias, Sunnis, Druze and certain Christian groups, given their common commitment to the Palestinian cause,” says Elamine. “For example, we’ve seen statements calling for unity from the main Sunni leaders like the Hariri family, who have been Hezbollah’s political opponents since 2005 [after the group allegedly assassinated politician Rafic Hariri], as well from Sunni religious figures in Tripoli who fiercely criticised Hezbollah for their role in the Syrian civil war and the quashing of the Syrian revolution.”
It is difficult to say how long this suspension of sectarian divisions will hold, and whether it will survive if the war intensifies over the coming months. For now, it dominates, says Elamine. “But amidst this overarching note of unity is rising frustration among, in particular, the anti-Hezbollah Christian factions who feel powerless to [stop] Hezbollah from fighting Israel.”
The grievances that many of the 1.5 million Sunni Syrian refugees in Lebanon have with Hezbollah must also be considered. This is another factor that could explode or be exploited.
As such, all talk of Lebanese national unity against Israeli aggression masks Lebanon’s very deep divisions around Hezbollah, divisions that have only grown over the past decade. The party’s controversial military support for Al-Assad in Syria, combined with allegations of Hezbollah blocking investigations into the 2020 Beirut port explosion, made Hezbollah a raft of new enemies, especially from Sunni and Christian quarters. Since 7 October 2023, the group’s critics have questioned Hezbollah’s ongoing decision to fire missiles into Israel, arguing that it would give Israel a pretext to launch a full-scale war that could destroy Lebanon. Hezbollah has consistently vowed, both then and now, to keep launching its rockets until there is a ceasefire in Gaza.
Despite rising sectarian language across social media, there is little appetite for another civil war, says Dina Matar, professor of political communication at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London. “But the worsening economic and political situation might open the door for political opportunism by [Hezbollah’s opponents]. How this will pan out and which parties will ally together in the coming weeks and months is unclear yet.”
Yet a drawn-out campaign by Israel could also work in Hezbollah’s favour, politically. “If Israel thinks that waging a long-term attack on Lebanon will make people rise up against Hezbollah, they are wrong,” says Chatham House’s Shehadi. “The more people Israel kills and the more it destroys Lebanon’s economy, [the more support Hezbollah will receive]. And if the Israelis are stupid enough to occupy parts of south Lebanon, it will give a huge boost of legitimacy to [Iran’s] whole ‘resistance axis’. Hezbollah has, for 24 years, been a resistance to an occupation that didn’t exist; an Israeli occupation would give it renewed raison d’être.”
All Hezbollah has to do to capitalise politically is survive, meaning that it is quite likely to emerge stronger, as witnessed in previous wars with Israel such as in 2006.
On the other hand, if the group is dealt a decisive military defeat, it would lead to a power vacuum that could destabilise Lebanon. However, given the IDF’s failure to eliminate Hamas in Gaza over the course of a year – a group that possesses a fraction of Hezbollah’s military prowess – many analysts think that Israel simply cannot win this battle by force. Hezbollah’s leadership has certainly taken an almighty beating, and is likely to incur more losses, but the group nonetheless remains a formidable force with large military, political and social resources.
“Is there even one group in Lebanon that actually has the realistic desire or means to fight even a weakened Hezbollah?” said Nathaniel George, a lecturer in politics of the Middle East at SOAS. “It’s a Western fantasy, espoused by a minority of Lebanese, that people in Lebanon will rise up and fight Hezbollah. Their opponents simply don’t have the popular support, organisational capacity or arms to do so, especially amidst an Israeli invasion.”
During the Lebanese Civil War, Kataeb and Lebanese Forces were the biggest armed groups in the country. But these once formidable Christian militias, armed and trained by the IDF and other external Cold War-era powers, are ghosts of their former selves, militarily speaking. “While the other groups’ military wings have lost practise,” said George, “Hezbollah fighters are combat experienced from the fight against Israeli occupation in Lebanon, as well as in the war in Syria and elsewhere.”
Moreover, it has never been more difficult to offer an alternative vision for Lebanon that could replace Hezbollah, ideologically speaking. “Lebanon’s economic system has completely and utterly failed, something that has less to do with Hezbollah and far more to do with the Western-backed, anti-Hezbollah coalition,” said George. “As such, the idea of salvation from the West looks more and more bankrupt, especially after a year in which the Lebanese have watched in horror as a Western-backed Israel commits daily war crimes against Palestinians, and now the Lebanese too.”
However, as the devastating cost of the war on Lebanon grows, and possibly extends for months to come, it is unclear just how long its citizens will keep supporting Hezbollah, as well as just how far Israel will go to make the country pay for the group’s fight.
[See also: Sleepwalking into the storm]
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