Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis

May 22, 2024

by: Kate Norman, BFP Writer

The infamous terrorist group Hamas thrust itself into the world spotlight on October 7, 2023, when thousands of terrorists tore into Israel and executed a massacre that will live in infamy as the bloodiest single day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust. The world has heard—though maybe not believed—countless accounts of the horrors that the Hamas terrorists executed against men, women, children and the elderly—Israelis, foreigners, Jewish, Arab, Christian or Muslims. No one was safe from the carnage.

Israel fought back to stem the tide of terror, launching a ground operation in Gaza to drive out the terrorist group that has controlled the enclave since 2007.

But this is not a one-front war. Israel is also taking near-daily fire in the north from the Lebanon-based Hezbollah terrorist group and sporadic attacks in the south from the Houthi terrorist group in Yemen.

The day after the Hamas attack on October 7, Hezbollah began firing rockets over the border into northern Israel. A few weeks later, the Houthis in Yemen also began launching sporadic projectiles and armed drones toward southern Israel. The group has also attacked dozens of commercial ships in the Red Sea—some with ties to Israel—casting a shadow over the important trading route.

At first glance, these terror groups have little in common. Hamas is Sunni, Hezbollah is Shiite and the Houthis form part of a sect of Shiite called the Zaydis.

What brings these three groups together? Two things: their shared hatred of Israel, as well as their generous patron—Iran.

The Islamist regime in Iran, known as “the world’s leading sponsor of terror,” funds, trains, arms and directs multiple terrorist groups across the Middle East—including Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis—in an attempt to expand its sphere of influence.

Hezbollah

Hezbollah, or the “Party of Allah” in Arabic, was founded in 1982 by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Tehran’s paramilitary group that does its dirty work abroad. Following the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, the newly founded Islamist regime sought to extend its reach further West. The IRGC took advantage of the Lebanon Civil War from 1975–1990 and recruited Shiite Islamists in Lebanon, trained them, funded them and set them up to do Tehran’s bidding.

At the same time, in 1982, Israel invaded southern Lebanon to drive north Palestinian terrorist who were using the area as a base to unleash attacks in the Galilee, launching what was known in Israel as Operation Peace for Galilee or the First Lebanon War.

To this day, Hezbollah has refused to recognize the sovereignty of Israel. In fact, the group published a manifesto in 1985, declaring the United States and “the Zionist entity” (Israel) as its enemies. The document even has an entire section on “the Necessity for the Destruction of Israel.”

The manifesto also declares Hezbollah’s allegiance to the Iranian leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, which makes Hezbollah funded, equipped and ordered by Tehran.

Designated as terrorist group by Israel, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, the Arab League, other Western countries and moderate Arab states, Hezbollah has approximately 100,000 fighters, according to its leader, Secretary–General Hassan Nasrallah. The group is armed with an arsenal of an estimated 120,000 to 130,000 missiles—including long-range missiles capable of reaching anywhere in Israel—according to the Israeli military.

But Hezbollah is not a pariah group in Lebanon. In fact, the group holds sway in the country after entering mainstream Lebanese politics in 2005. Hezbollah provides social services in Shiite areas of Lebanon, including schools, hospitals and charities, endearing the group to the Lebanese people and earning it the reputation of a “state within a state.”

And this mini-state, armed with long-range missiles and pockets full of cash from Iran, is setting its sights on the Jewish state. The US estimates that Hezbollah receives some US $100–200 million per year from Iran, while a former Israel Defense Forces (IDF) chief estimated that Hezbollah actually receives upwards of US $800 million annually.

In exchange for funding, training and propping up Hezbollah on Israel’s northern border, Iran does not have to lift a finger to attack the Jewish state directly when it has Hamas, Hezbollah and also the Houthis to do its bidding.

The Houthis

The Houthi rebels are based in Yemen, over 1,300 miles (2,200 km.) away from Israel. Yet on October 19, they launched three cruise missiles toward the Jewish state. The projectiles were intercepted by a US Navy warship in the Red Sea.

Since then, the Houthis have launched sporadic missiles and drones toward southern Israel and have attacked commercial vessels in the Red Sea, some Israeli-owned. Threatening the stability of this important shipping route, Houthi launch sites have been targeted by the US military and its allies in the region.

The group’s military spokesman claimed a barrage of ballistic missiles launched toward Israel in October and promised more “to help the Palestinians to victory,” as quoted by Reuters.

The group was formed in the 1990s but has received support from the IRGC since at least 2011, the American Jewish Committee reported. Iran mostly wields the Houthis to launch attacks on neighboring moderate Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

So why has this group gone out of its way to launch a few meager attacks on Israel’s south? The answer is summed up in the Houthi’s slogan: “Death to America, Death to Israel, Cursed be the Jews, Victory to Islam.”

The Ties that Bind

And there lie the two ties that bind these three terrorist groups together. All have openly declared war on Israel, refuse to acknowledge the Jewish state’s sovereignty and have vowed to wipe Israel—from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea—off the map. Once again, all roads lead back to Iran, the true archenemy of Israel.

But rather than engage the Jewish state in open conflict, the Islamist regime in Tehran uses the IRGC as the puppet master to manipulate the terror puppets in the region against Israel. The differences in their religious sects and streams matter little when Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis join hands to choke Israel from all sides. And as long as the money, know-how and weapons continue funneling across the region from Iran, the attacks on Israel will continue.

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