In recent days, social media in Lebanon has been flooded with videos featuring unusually blunt criticism of Hezbollah following its decision to join Iran in fighting Israel.

“God willing, Naim Qassem, may you not find shelter during the month of Ramadan. You are not a resistance movement — you are Iran’s arsenal in Lebanon,” a Lebanese Shiite man said in a video circulating in recent days, referring to the Shiite terror group’s leader.

Another Shiite resident of southern Lebanon filmed himself mocking Hezbollah’s slogans of “strength and honor.”

“What is Hezbollah doing? This is the winning of the war you’ve talked about?” he asked. “If not for the [IDF] warnings to evacuate our homes, we would have died under our houses.”

Sharp criticism of Hezbollah in Lebanon is nothing new. The Iranian proxy has been a major focus of discontent in the past, including large protests in Beirut in 2019. But the anger being directed at the terror group now is coming not from its normal critics but from those who have largely backed it until now.

The widespread unhappiness with Hezbollah is being felt not only on the street but in the halls of power, raising the prospect that the group may be weakened politically. However, it remains a major armed presence, and it’s unclear whether political leaders will be willing to risk civil war to move against the group in any major way, experts say.

Since its establishment in the 1980s, Hezbollah has relied on the Shiite community in Lebanon for political and military backing, and is an entrenched presence in many southern Lebanon villages, especially among Shiites, according to Israel.

Moran Levanoni, an expert on Lebanon and Hezbollah at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, told The Times of Israel that the criticism from within the Shiite community is unprecedented.

He noted that shortly after war broke out with Israel and the United States attacking Iran on February 28, tribes in Lebanon’s Hermel and Baalbek regions — “Hezbollah’s very own heartland” — published letters publicly calling for Lebanon “not to be caught in outside interests and for Lebanon to not be dragged into war.”

Nonetheless, Hezbollah began attacking Israel a short time later, sparking a major Israeli air campaign in southern Lebanon and suburbs of Beirut and plunging Lebanon back into a war not of its making.

A continuing decline in public opinion

Jonathan Elkhoury, a Lebanese Christian who has lived in Israel since 2001, has been watching from afar as Hezbollah has steadily lost popularity in Lebanon over the last several years.

Elkhoury came to Israel as a child as part of the relocation of the South Lebanon Army, which fought alongside the Israel Defense Forces during the military’s lengthy occupation of southern Lebanon and was granted refuge when Israeli troops left Lebanon in 2000.

According to him, both that withdrawal and the 2006 Second Lebanon War were portrayed as victories for Hezbollah, helping the Iranian proxy group gain support among the Lebanese public.

But over the last decade, economic crises that have gripped Lebanon have sparked widespread criticism of the group, which was seen as selling out the country for Iranian interests.

“In 2019 we saw the first sign of people speaking publicly (in Lebanon) against the organization. The economic protests over Lebanon’s collapsing economy cast Hezbollah as responsible for the country’s deterioration,” said Khoury, who maintains contacts with Lebanese residents through social media.

Another significant turning point, he said, was Hezbollah’s decision to start attacking Israel alongside Hamas on October 8, 2023.

“That’s when protests began — both on social media and in the established media — against Lebanon’s entry into the war. The argument was essentially that Hezbollah was dragging Lebanon into a conflict that had nothing to do with any Lebanese interest,” he said.

Israel launched an offensive against Hezbollah in September 2024 that saw weeks of heavy bombings and a ground incursion by troops into southern Lebanon, forcing many Lebanese from their homes.

In November, a badly damaged Hezbollah signed a ceasefire agreement that included a demand that it disarm, though it never did so. Israel withdrew from south Lebanon but left troops in five strategic points along the border and continued hitting the group with occasional airstrikes, to which Hezbollah refrained from retaliating.

Since then, Elkhoury said, a significant shift can be seen in Lebanese public opinion regarding Hezbollah’s continued existence as an armed organization, given the extensive damage inflicted on Lebanon because of it.

In a survey conducted among Lebanese residents in July 2025 by the Gallup Institute, 79% of respondents said the Lebanese army should be the only body in the country to hold weapons.

A poll conducted in January and published by the Council for a Secure America showed similar findings: 73% of respondents said they strongly or somewhat support Lebanese President Joseph Aoun’s efforts to disarm Hezbollah, while only 9% said they strongly or somewhat oppose the process.

Once a potent political force, Hezbollah has also found itself with few defenders in Beirut. In January 2025 Lebanon’s parliament elected former army chief Joseph Aoun, a Hezbollah opponent, as the country’s president.

“The choice of Aoun is essentially a symbol of these calls to dismantle Hezbollah, because that was effectively his ticket,” Elkhoury explained.

In his first speech as president before the Lebanese parliament, Aoun said that the state alone should possess weapons, not any other organization. “He did not mention Hezbollah by name, but everyone knows whom he meant.”

Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, whose government has instructed the army to disarm Hezbollah and other militias, is also considered an opponent of Hezbollah.

But specifically among Shiites in Lebanon, support for the group, including its armed wing, remained high, with only 27% of the community polled by Gallup saying the army should be sole armed organization.

Criticism from the hard core

That seems to have changed over the last 10 days, following Hezbollah’s decision to start bombing Israel in support of Iran’s retaliation for the military campaign against the Islamic Republic.

After initially tiptoeing into the war, which some analysts saw as a signal of the group resisting Tehran’s demands for its backing, Hezbollah has since stepped up its fire, launching a steady stream of drones and missiles into northern Israel and occasionally central Israel as well.

On Wednesday night, the group intensified its assaults with a series of large barrages on the north and center. According to Israel’s military, the attacks were coordinated with Iran, which fired ballistic missiles at Israel at the same time.

Since Hezbollah’s attacks began on March 2, Israel has responded by carrying out extensive bombing raids against the terror group, largely centered in southern Lebanon and the Dahiyeh district south of Beirut where Hezbollah is headquartered, with civilians in those areas forced to flee to safer parts of the country.

Many of those fleeing are part of Lebanon’s large Shiite community, which makes up about a third of the country’s population.

As of Wednesday, 780,000 people in Lebanon had registered in displacement centers, according to official figures, with estimates saying the number of displaced has already reached one million.

According to Elkhoury, former Hezbollah supporters who have now turned against the group are angry that it sat on its hands for over a year as Israel continued to carry out strikes in Lebanon, and only decided to break the ceasefire on behalf of Tehran.

Hezbollah initially characterized its decision to enter the war as a reaction to the killing of Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei but quickly changed its tune, claiming that it was in response to what it said were Israel’s ceasefire violations.

But most still see the group’s entry into the war as being driven by Iran, which  critics say belies Hezbollah’s longstanding claim that its main purpose is to defend Lebanon.

“In the end, it turns out that what matters most to them is defending Iran,” Elkhoury said.

In an example of the criticism coming from quarters once solidly in Hezbollah’s corner, a woman who fled her Dahiyeh home was seen in a video complaining bitterly as she addressed Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem.

“For a year and a half the Zionist enemy has been striking the south and all areas in Lebanon, Dahiyeh, Baalbek, and you were silent, you did not respond,” she says. “But when Iran was attacked, you broke your silence to tell the world that Iran is not alone.”

Levanoni noted that the mass displacements are also a major source of discontent among Lebanon’s Shiites.

“As soon as the waves of displaced people began moving between schools in Beirut and Sidon, there has been a great deal of criticism of Hezbollah,” he said, noting the the criticism was being aired in news interviews with evacuees and on social media. “We have not seen such a volume in the past.”

In one such interview with the pan-Arab channel Al-Jusour, a displaced woman says she supports Hezbollah but calls its entry into the war a “grave mistake.”

“Women and children are thrown onto the street,” she says. “What do they gain from this? Why? We do not want war.”

Protected by fears of civil war

The increasingly toxic place held by Hezbollah in Lebanon’s public sphere could lead to the group losing its political standing as well.

Hezbollah’s domestic power largely stems from its alliance with the Amal party, the main political party for the country’s Shiites.

Amal’s leader, Nabih Berri, also serves as speaker of the Lebanese parliament — one of the three most powerful positions in the country — giving him the ability to provide allies like Hezbollah cover from government decisions.

But Amal could find that maintaining the alliance is a political liability and decide to jettison Hezbollah, significantly weakening its political power.

“If the Hezbollah–Amal duo stops running together, it would signal that Amal understands it is no longer benefiting from the partnership, and that would be a watershed moment for Hezbollah,” Levanoni said.

There are already signs of cracks in the partnership. Reports in the Arab media indicated that Berri felt betrayed by Hezbollah’s decision to join the war alongside Iran, a move he reportedly opposed.

When the Lebanese cabinet voted to outlaw Hezbollah’s armed activities shortly after the attacks began, a step it had refrained from taking until then, Amal ministers made no attempt to oppose the measure.

A unnamed Lebanese political source described as close to Hezbollah told the Arab Weekly that Berri felt pressured by growing opposition to the group.

With Amal no longer providing Hezbollah with political cover, the government could intensify pressure on the Lebanese Armed Forces to take stronger action toward disarming the group.

Following a government decision to dismantle armed organizations in southern Lebanon, the Lebanese army said on January 7 that the disarmament plan had “achieved its initial objectives on the ground and entered a more advanced phase,” while noting that work was ongoing and that Hezbollah ammunition stockpiles and tunnels were still being dealt with.

According to Levanoni, both Salam and Aoun are interested in replacing army chief Rodolphe Haykal amid dissatisfaction with his handling of Hezbollah.

Should they install someone more determined to act against the group, he said, it would constitute a highly critical turning point in efforts to put down the terror group.

But Lebanon is not yet close to seeking the total removal of Hezbollah, which would likely carry the risk of fresh sectarian violence.

Elkhoury stressed that Hezbollah is ultimately a Lebanese organization rather than a foreign implant, and comprehensive action against it could push the country back into civil war — a deeply traumatic collective memory among Lebanese.

“I don’t have many solutions,” he said of Hezbollah’s future in Lebanon. “This is a very complex country.”

Levanoni was also unconvinced that the government was ready to move against Hezbollah, even if it is weakened and facing widespread disapproval.

“I would like to tell you that the Lebanese government will certainly exploit Hezbollah’s unpopularity and act more forcefully against it, but I cannot say that,” he said.

The expert noted that Haykal himself had cited fears of civil war erupting should the army try to disarm Hezbollah.

“In my view, he is absolutely right,” he said.

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