Sidelined in Gaza war, Hezbollah fighters yearn for victory over Israel

The casket of the Hezbollah commander killed in an Israeli strike is carried to his grave in this small village with determined devotion by his fellow fighters. They have tears in their eyes, and sweat from the heat and exertion. On the hand of one reaching to hold on is tattooed a grenade.

But it is Hassan Yehya Naameh’s family who put the lifelong Hezbollah member to rest, starting with his seven-year-old daughter, Hana. She wears a camouflage uniform and is carried ahead of the cortege, amid raised arms, anti-Israel chants, and waving banners of the Lebanese Shiite militia.

As a Hezbollah honor guard presides over the ceremony – each fighter smeared with camouflage face paint – tributes are given and Hana holds a portrait of her father as she rests, in a final farewell, on his flag-draped casket.

About 330 fighters have been killed across southern Lebanon since Iran-backed Hezbollah escalated its conflict with Israel to support Palestinian Hamas militants, who attacked from Gaza last Oct. 7. Hezbollah has signaled it will stop its campaign if Israel ends its Gaza offensive.

But this fallen fighter, a unit commander, is portrayed as a triumphant hero, cut down “on the road to Jerusalem” while “defending the cause.” His burial, beside half a dozen others killed fighting for Hezbollah in previous wars, speaks to the long-term mindset of the Middle East’s most powerful Shiite militia – and how it views the current conflict with Israel as another data point in the inevitable demise of the Jewish state.

Indeed, as the sun sets over this hilltop ceremony in southern Lebanon, the strength of the sentiments indicates the scale of the challenge to Israel should it – or should Hezbollah, which is known to be magnitudes stronger than Hamas – ever decide to engage in all-out war.

There is much anger directed at Israel at this funeral. But for Hezbollah and the Shiite Muslim true believers here, there is added inspiration drawn from the legend of a historical battle 14 centuries ago, when Imam Hussein became the “Lord of the Martyrs” by fighting for a just cause despite impossible odds.

Death in battle is cast as something to aspire to, a sacrifice worthy of celebration, not of sorrow.

“My son Hassan, the soul of God, congratulations to you, from us – you got your wish, this rank [of martyrdom] you just achieved,” said the Hezbollah commander’s father, Yehya Naameh, repeatedly thanking God for “this great gift of martyrdom with my own son.”

The cost to Lebanon

Admired as such devotion can be in some quarters, Hezbollah fighters are torn between an ideological imperative to fight what they consider Israeli occupation of Arab lands, and not triggering a full-blown war that would flatten southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah’s fighters say they want to fight – often to grasp the “gift” of martyrdom, as Mr. Naameh did – and that Israel’s failure so far to crush Hamas in Gaza after eight months of battle shows its relative weakness. Already Israel and Hezbollah have been exchanging some 13,000 projectiles a month across the Lebanon-Israel border, according to United Nations peacekeeping forces.

Hezbollah is the most powerful arm of the Iran-led “Axis of Resistance.” Yet Iran, which analysts say has veto power over Hezbollah’s decision to launch an all-out war, is faced with a litany of its own internal problems, and has made clear its desire to avoid a broader war.

And in Lebanon, questions are being raised about the cost of the extensive destruction already wrought; about the price paid by 90,000 displaced citizens; and whether Lebanon can add a full-blown conflict to chronic, impoverishing economic and political woes.

“Until now, we did not hear any mother or father of a martyr say, ‘Hezbollah destroyed my family,’” says a senior Hezbollah missile specialist when asked about pushback among some Lebanese. “So we still have the people’s support.

“We are not in a carnival, we are not having a party here; we are in a state of war,” says the specialist, who would not give his name.

In the last full-scale Hezbollah-Israel war in 2006, at least 250 combatants and more than 1,100 civilians were killed in Lebanon, with some 121 military and 44 civilian deaths in Israel, in 34 days of combat.

Despite the escalation over the past eight months, which have seen the deepest and most consequential Hezbollah-Israel strikes since 2006, both sides have deliberately taken steps to avoid an out-of-control spiral of violence.

“It’s tearing me apart”

The result is a conundrum for Hezbollah: As it watches Hamas locked in battle with its arch-enemy, it has so far played only a secondary role – a trajectory that has angered some Hezbollah fighters who trained for years for what they were told was an inevitable “final” decisive fight against Israel.

“Personally, it doesn’t matter how I feel, because I receive orders from the higher command center,” says the missile specialist, who speaks with calm confidence. “But since you asked … I am experiencing frustration, because it is not a full-fledged war. ... I am ready to fight – we are all ready to fight. It’s killing me, it’s tearing me apart that we are not in full-scale action with the Israelis.”

Still, Hezbollah is gaining insight into Israeli capabilities from the fight in Gaza. It has done little to dent the brash confidence of a militia that today boasts an arsenal of at least 150,000 rockets and missiles.

Noted often during interviews with three Hezbollah veterans is the example of north Gaza’s Jabaliya refugee camp. Israel struck it repeatedly with large bombs early in the conflict, destroyed entire residential blocks, and then declared the area cleared – only to be attacked by Hamas again from it last month.

“We’re talking about Hamas here, small Hamas,” says the Hezbollah missile specialist, laughing. “They are giving the Israelis hell, and [Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu keeps claiming victory after victory. … They can’t take Jabaliya, and they talk about us? We are the cream of the resistance. Imagine what we can do.”

Still, the cost to Hezbollah has already been high, and Israeli targeting can be precise. The day before Mr. Naameh’s funeral, for example, this correspondent visited the Christian Lebanese border town of Rmaich.

That day, at 2:21 p.m. in the direction of the nearby Shiite village of Maroun al-Ras, Israeli forces fired a single rocket or shell that sent a large plume of smoke into the air. Hours later, Hezbollah announced that the strike killed Mr. Naameh and another fighter.

“Until now, the rules are still under control, but we can’t be more patient than we are now,” says a ranking Hezbollah officer who gave the name Ahmad, contacted in a small village in southern Lebanon. He applauds the Hamas attack, but says it was a “strategic miscalculation” that Hamas did not share the timing with Hezbollah, so that both could have simultaneously “taken more ground and killed more Israelis together.”

Victory is an article of faith

But there is also a practical rationale for taking careful decisions, says Ahmad.

“The reason we don’t escalate right now with a harder, larger scale war, is because we have specialists who study the economic well-being of the people of the south, our supporters, and ask: Are they ready for this, or not?” says the veteran Hezbollah officer. “We can’t just jump in and launch a full-scale war, knowing our people don’t know where their next piece of bread is coming from.”

“Yes, we can do it now,” says Ahmad. “But we are waiting for the right moment, for our people to be in the right shape.”

Calculations could change, but for Hezbollah confidence in eventual “victory” is an article of faith, no matter the timeline.

“If we make our decision to go in, we are going in and we are not going back – we are not Hamas,” says a thick-set veteran Hezbollah fighter of 22 years, who gave the pseudonym Jihad. “The Israelis are going to regret it, and they are going to wish their war stayed with Hamas.

“We believe the Israelis are intruders; that’s not their country. We can fight 20 wars, and win once, and consider ourselves winners,” says Jihad. “Israel can never continue this way. … They are the ones who are going to end up without a country, not us.”