Lebanon’s Communists and the Disarming of Hezbollah
In 1980s Lebanon, the Communists were often targets for rising Islamist forces. Yet today the weakening of Hezbollah offers little opening for left-wing politics.
Members and supporters of the Lebanese Communist Party wave the national flag embossed with the communist hammer and sickle symbol as they rally on the highway that leads to the southern town of Naqura in the area of al-Hosh on December 19, 2025, to protest against Israeli attacks on Lebanon. (Mohamoud Zayat / AFP via Getty Images)
In the east and south of Lebanon, Israel continues its bombing campaign. After the latest attacks, in which several Hezbollah members were killed, the group has raised its rhetorical pitch. It has again vowed to fight back, despite being severely weakened after the 2024 war.
For the last four decades, Hezbollah had held an effective monopoly on Lebanese resistance against Israel. But it was neither the first to pick up arms nor to support the Palestinian cause from Lebanese soil. So Hanna Gharib, general secretary of the Lebanese Communist Party (LCP) tells me, at the party’s headquarters in Beirut. “We started the resistance,” he points out.
Even before the foundation of Israel in 1948, the Lebanese Communists fought side by side with Palestinian left-wingers against Zionist right-wing militias. When the civil war broke out in Lebanon in 1975, the Communists again joined the fight. “We liberated three-quarters of the territory when Israel invaded in 1982. We began in Beirut and then continued south,” he tells me.
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