A day after October 7, Hezbollah, opened a front against Israel as part of its “unity of fronts” strategy, hoping to lend support to Hamas and other elements of the Palestinian resistance. Until last month, the party had succeeded in maintaining a limited war, which forced sixty thousand to evacuate from northern Israel without significantly degrading Hezbollah’s own military infrastructure and keeping its leadership intact. The war on the northern front seemed to bystanders a rerun of the 2006 conflict, which ended in Israeli defeat. With Hezbollah’s military capabilities far greater than they were eighteen years ago, it seemed that Israel was facing a genuine existential threat.

In less than a month, Israel has dealt the “Party of God” significant blows, from a pager attack that killed civilians alongside large sections of the party’s officials to assassinations of its political and military leadership, including Hezbollah’s charismatic secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah. Jacobin spoke to Joseph Daher, author of The Political Economy of Lebanon’s Party of God, about Hezbollah’s origins, its sources of support both domestically and internationally, and the strategic dilemmas it faces.