Lebanese terror group Hezbollah spent months restocking its arsenal of rockets and drones, using support from Iran and its own weapons factories to prepare for a new war with Israel, six sources familiar with the group’s preparations say.
Down but not out after its devastating 2024 conflict with Israel, Hezbollah had concluded that another round of fighting was inevitable – and that this time, it could face an existential threat, according to the sources.
Reuters interviews three Lebanese sources briefed on Hezbollah’s activities, two foreign officials in Lebanon and an Israeli military official, who all speak on condition of anonymity.
The details of Hezbollah’s recent efforts to rearm have not been previously reported.
The head of Hezbollah’s media office, Youssef al-Zein, tells Reuters that Hezbollah would not comment on its military operations, though he said the group had decided to “fight to the last breath.”
Founded by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in 1982, Hezbollah launched rockets and drones at Israel on Monday to avenge the death of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, pulling Lebanon into the war raging across the Middle East.
Although the decision caught some of its own officials off guard, Hezbollah had been readying its military stockpiles and its command-and-control structure for an eventual rematch with Israel, the six sources said.
To do so, it had drawn on a monthly budget of $50 million, most of it from Iran and earmarked for fighters’ salaries, according to one of the Lebanese sources, who has been briefed on the group’s finances and military activities. One of the foreign officials confirmed the $50 million budget.
It is not immediately clear how long the group had been relying on that monthly budget and how it compared to its previous financial resources.
The group has said funds from Iran helped finance rents for people displaced by the 2024 war. Around 60,000 Lebanese, most of them from the Shi’ite Muslim community from which Hezbollah draws its popular support, remained displaced over the last year, with their homes still in ruins.
Hezbollah had also worked to replenish its drone and rocket stashes through local manufacturing, the first Lebanese source, the foreign officials and the Israeli military official say. The Israeli military official says Hezbollah had used Iranian funding both to smuggle arms and make its own weapons, but adds that its manufacturing capability had been diminished.
The second foreign official says the group had stationed new rockets and Iranian-made logistical materials in southern Lebanon before the latest war began.
Israeli military spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani tells Reuters that Hezbollah “had a lot of arms left” and was also seeking to rearm. “They were trying to smuggle, and we were preventing that.”
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