Hezbollah is no longer the organization that went to war on Oct. 8, 2023, under the banner of “support for Gaza.”
The Iranian-backed Lebanese political party and paramilitary force lost much of its senior command, including its longtime leader, Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah. Its capabilities and communications networks have come under extensive attack. The fall of Bashar Assad’s government cut off a crucial supply route through Syria, and its principal sponsor, Iran, has come under considerable pressure of its own in its war with the United States and Israel.
Lebanon’s government, meanwhile, is pressing to disarm the group and extend state control to areas where Hezbollah has operated.
Hezbollah continues to operate, despite the pressure it faces. But the new circumstances have altered how it is led, the structure of its military organization, and the room it has to operate.
The assassination of Nasrallah on Sept. 27, 2024, was the most consequential of those changes. Israel killed him in a strike on the group’s central command headquarters in Beirut’s southern suburbs, ending the 32-year tenure of the man who had become the face of Hezbollah.
Days later, Hashem Safieddine, widely regarded as the leading candidate to succeed him, was also killed. Hezbollah subsequently elected Naim Qassem as secretary general on Oct. 29, 2024.
When Nasrallah became secretary general 32 years earlier, Hezbollah was a smaller and less influential organization than the one he would eventually lead. During his tenure, its military and political role expanded both inside Lebanon and beyond its borders. So did Nasrallah’s personal influence, which at times extended well beyond the formal powers of his office.
Ali Al-Amin, editor-in-chief of the Junoubia news site and a critic of Hezbollah, says Nasrallah “reduced Hezbollah to himself and stamped the organization with his own personality.”
Al-Amin says Nasrallah’s tenure was marked by an increasing concentration of power in his office, at the expense of some of the organization’s other components.
That concentration also shaped Hezbollah’s public identity and politics.
“What the party wanted to say did not come from a meeting of the Shura Council or from a leadership statement,” Al-Amin told MBN. “Hassan Nasrallah himself was the party’s voice, media outlet and platform.”
Yet the killing of a leader as dominant as Nasrallah did not, by itself, bring down the organization.
Badih Qarhani, an adviser to the Paris-based Research Center on Terrorism, says the impact of killing senior leaders varies. Some groups weaken dramatically after losing their leadership. Others survive by drawing on established institutions and networks.
Hezbollah, which Washington designates as a terrorist organization, belongs to the latter category, he says.
“No one can deny that the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah was the biggest blow to the organization,” Qarhani says. “But his assassination does not erase the party’s existence or its ability to continue.”
Nasrallah’s death was only one part of a broader assault on Hezbollah’s leadership. A succession of strikes targeted military and security commanders, leaving vacancies at different levels of the organization.
In March 2026, Reuters reported that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which the United States also designates as a terrorist organization, had participated in reorganizing Hezbollah’s military command after the 2024 war.
The process involved moving away from a hierarchical structure toward a decentralized model built around smaller groups whose members had less knowledge of the operations of other units.
The purpose, according to the report, was to limit the damage caused by security breaches and preserve the continuity of military operations.
But a new structure does not necessarily restore old capabilities.
Retired Brig. Gen. Maroun Khreish says effective command and control depend on a functioning network linking senior leaders to forces on the ground — one capable of assigning missions and monitoring their execution.
That system was damaged, he says, when the loss of senior commanders coincided with attacks on Hezbollah’s communications networks.
“The new leaders need time to get to know the units, build relationships with the fighters and understand the operating mechanisms that were established with their predecessors over many years,” Khreish told MBN.
Two years later, Hezbollah has managed to rebuild part of its organizational structure, Khreish said. But it has not regained the “surplus of power” it once possessed.
The changes inside Hezbollah have unfolded alongside a transformation of the surrounding region.
The fall of Assad’s government in Syria deprived the group of an ally that had for years provided a critical corridor for Iranian weapons and equipment moving through Iraq and Syria into Lebanon. Iran, meanwhile, has faced growing military and economic pressure from its ongoing war with the U.S. and Israel.
Hezbollah’s new leaders inherited an organization whose regional depth had been reduced and whose ability to move and replenish its supplies had been constrained.
Reuters reported in July 2025 that Hezbollah had begun a strategic review following its war with Israel. Among the issues under discussion was whether to reduce its role as an armed organization without giving up its weapons altogether.
The review came as Hezbollah’s arsenal was moving to the center of Lebanon’s political debate. In August of that year, the Lebanese government decided to place all weapons under state control and tasked the army with preparing a plan to implement the decision.
Yet Hezbollah has retained the political, media and social structures that have long formed part of its power base.
Qarhani says the group’s ability to survive is also tied to its social and ideological base, as well as to continued Iranian support.
The harder question is where power now resides inside the organization.
Al-Amin says the authority accumulated by Nasrallah did not pass in its entirety to Naim Qassem. Instead, he argues, the war and the changed security environment shifted a greater share of influence toward military and security leaders with direct ties to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
He describes Qassem as “a figure within a leadership framework, but closer to an executive than a decisionmaker.”
Al-Amin argues that Nasrallah’s absence has also prompted Iran to become more directly involved in Hezbollah’s affairs.
Hezbollah is quiet about its internal operations, and the level of support Iran provides.
But the outlines of its transformation are clear enough, according to Al-Amin. Three years after Oct. 7, Hezbollah has survived the loss of Nasrallah and much of its senior leadership. What it has not been able to preserve is the image of power and invulnerability that Hezbollah spent decades constructing is no longer as clear, Al-Amin said.
Adapted and translated from the original Arabic.
