JERUSALEM — With Israel on the brink of a third all-out war with Hezbollah as the Lebanese group constantly fires deadly missiles, drones and rockets, the differences and similarities between Hezbollah and Hamas are now coming under scrutiny.
The Islamic Republic of Iran funds the Middle Eastern terrorist organizations Hamas and Hezbollah, which have declared war on Israel and are also responsible for carrying out numerous terrorist attacks against American civilians and military personnel.
Fox News Digital reached out to experts for a fact-finding analysis of Hamas, which is based in the southern Gaza Strip, and Hezbollah, the de facto ruler of the Lebanese state on Israel’s northern border. Israel has fought two wars with Hezbollah, in 1982 and 2006.
“Hezbollah is the crown jewel of Iran’s empire of terror and evil and by far the most powerful Iranian proxy with statehood and even more firepower than some of the militaries in Europe today,” Jonathan Conricus, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former IDF spokesman, told Fox News Digital.
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In this file photo taken on February 13, 2016, Hezbollah fighters hold flags and attend a memorial service for their leader Sheikh Abbas al-Mousawi, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in 1992, in the village of Tefata in southern Lebanon. (AP Photo/Mohamed Zaatari, File)
Despite widespread poverty and economic instability in Iran, Iran is also a prolific donor to Hezbollah, providing the Lebanese terrorist organization with more than $700 million annually, according to the Israel Defense Forces and the U.S. State Department. Joint military cooperation between the Iranian regime and Hezbollah on terror and war planning has been a long-standing feature in Lebanon, Syria, and across Europe.
“In a military comparison, Hezbollah is far more powerful than Hamas in every military indicator: the number, range, accuracy and payload of its rockets, as well as the number of personnel, armed fighters, training and equipment,” Conricus added.
An Israeli soldier fires a mobile howitzer near the Lebanese border in northern Israel on January 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Hezbollah has amassed a vast arsenal of rockets and missiles aimed at the Jewish state, estimated at 150,000. The IDF has slashed Hamas’ supply of 20,000 rockets and missiles since the start of the war. But Hamas was able to fire eight rockets into Israel from the city of Rafah two weeks ago. Fox News Digital reported last week that Hezbollah has fired more than 200 missiles, rockets and drones at Israel.
The economic situations of Hamas and Hezbollah have similarities and differences in the extent of financial support and military training from Tehran.
“Hezbollah and Hamas are both terrorist organisations funded primarily by Iran. Hezbollah’s loyalty is only to Iran. Hamas benefits everyone who supports it,” said Eddie Cohen, a Lebanese-born Israeli Hezbollah expert.
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Training video of the Radwan Unit of the Hezbollah terrorist organization. (Memri.org)
“Hamas is under a naval blockade and cannot fly to other countries, making it difficult for it to receive supplies and weapons. Hezbollah can,” said Cohen, a researcher at the Israeli Center for Grand Strategy (Eitan).
The numbers of terrorists fighting for both groups vary. The IDF has reduced Hamas’ terrorist forces by almost 50% since the start of the war, reducing them to between 9,000 and 12,000 fighters.
“Under the leadership of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, the group boasts between 20,000 and 25,000 full-time fighters and tens of thousands more in reserve,” the IDF said. wrote on the company’s website. “Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Forces are particularly known for their fighting capabilities and strategic importance in regional conflicts. The force… was established with the support of Iran’s Quds Force.”
Walid Fares, co-director of #EducateAmerica and professor of Middle East studies, told Fox News Digital that the first major difference between Hamas and Hezbollah is that “Hamas is an organizational and ideological offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood and is a Sunni extremist group, one of many Ikhwani faction branches in the region.”
Ikhwan means Muslim Brotherhood in Arabic.
Hamas terrorists take part in a military parade marking the anniversary of the 2014 war with Israel, near the border in the central Gaza Strip, on July 19, 2023. (REUTERS/Ibrahim Abu Mustafa/File Photo)
He added: “Hezbollah is from the other side. They are Shiite, but they are jihadi Shiite and are made up of Lebanese Shiite Muslims who were recruited (and funded) by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or Sepah Pasdaran, in the early 1980s. They were launched in the northern Bekaa by the Islamic Republic that year and advanced all the way south to the southern outskirts of Beirut, and then further south after Israel began its withdrawal.”
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the IDF’s Gibor Base in Kiryat Shemona on June 5, 2024, and was briefed by 769th Brigade Commander Avraham Marciano and Northern Command Homefront Coordinator Brigadier General Alon Friedman (retired). (Israel Government Press Office)
Fares, co-host of the popular podcast “War and Freedom,” said Hamas’ “ultimate goal is to destroy Israel and establish a Taliban-like emirate or state in Palestine, but more importantly, to include its Islamic organizations in a new caliphate in the region. Hamas is not a ‘nationalist’ group, it is a pan-Islamist organization.”
In contrast to Hamas, Frase noted, Hezbollah “believes exactly the same as the Iranian regime’s doctrine, which is to join the sister Islamic republics of Iran, Iraq and Yemen to establish a Khomeinist republic in Lebanon and ultimately form a ‘parallel’ Shiite Khomeinist (jihadist)-style caliphate known as the Imam State, with Shiite Muslims rejecting the Sunni caliphate.”
Hezbollah’s Radwan Forces are conducting training in southern Lebanon near the Israeli border. (AP/Hassan Amar)
Islamic revolutionary Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini founded the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979 with a mission to spread Shiite Islam around the world.
“They are ideologically polar opposites, so how did they come together? What do they have in common? First of all, they both want to destroy the Zionist state. [Israel]”That is their ultimate shared goal. And they want to overthrow all Arab regimes that support peace or that obstruct jihad. They are both enemies of America,” Phares said.
An Iranian military truck carrying a surface-to-air missile passes a portrait of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during Iran’s annual Armed Forces Day parade in Tehran, Iran, on April 18, 2018. (Atta Kenare/AFP via Getty Images)
According to Middle East experts, the Iranian regime’s funding of both terrorist organizations is a key factor in understanding chauvinism in the region and the destabilization of the Levant and Islamic heartland of the Middle East.
Qatar hosts Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh, who told the Qatari-owned Al Jazeera television station in 2022 – two years before Hamas launches its October 7 invasion of southern Israel – that Tehran sends at least $70 million to Hamas each year.
“Iran has been at the forefront in supporting the cause. [the] “We are committed to the Palestinian people,” Haniyeh said in March.
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Hamas and Hezbollah’s close ties began in the mid-1990s.
Counterterrorism expert Bruce Hoffman Additionally, a June 14 article published on the website of the Council on Foreign Relations noted that “approximately 500 Hamas fighters are training in Iran in preparation for the October 7 attack, a reflection of Iran’s longstanding support for Hamas.”
Fares explained that Hamas and Hezbollah linked up in 1994-1995, “when hundreds of Hamas officials and leaders were exiled to southern Lebanon by Israel. They were accepted by Hezbollah, who linked them to the Tehran regime. They were accepted, given money and weapons. They were told that despite the Sunni-Shiite divide, the two jihadist movements could work together.”
Hamas elected leader Yahya Sinwar (center) attends a ceremony for fighters killed in an Israeli airstrike at Yarmouk football stadium in Gaza City, Gaza Strip, May 24, 2021. (Laurent van der Stock/Getty Images)
He said Hamas supported the Shiites and “finally [Syria President Bashar] The conflict between the Assad (pro-Khomeini) regime and the Sunni Salafi jihadist factions was a major crisis for Hamas, who was accused of being traitors by the Sunnis. But eventually, when Assad regained power in Syria and the Islamic regime shifted the battlefield to Gaza, Hamas regained its “jihadist notoriety” in the region.”
“Strategically speaking, Hezbollah is currently enjoying a situation where it has Israel exactly where it wants to be, and Israel has certainly achieved significant military accomplishments. But at the strategic level, Hezbollah is benefiting from Israel’s depleted capabilities and a very difficult diplomatic situation,” said Conricus, the former IDF spokesman.
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Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah speaks by video link as supporters raise their hands during the Shiite holy day of Ashura in a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, on August 9, 2022. (AP Photo/Hussein Marra)
“Unless the international community understands the seriousness of the situation and acts urgently to facilitate diplomatic negotiations to bring Israeli civilians home safely, the only option left is military means, and Israel will unfortunately be forced to use military means to protect the lives of its own civilians, which is a responsibility that any government must bear. I hope that can be avoided, but at this point it does not seem likely.”
The United States sanctions Hamas and Hezbollah as foreign terrorist organizations. The EU sanctions only Hezbollah’s so-called “military wing,” a terrorist organization, but France has blocked Hezbollah from being listed as a terrorist organization outright. The EU sanctioned Hamas as a terrorist organization in 2003.
