Israel’s recent assault on Hezbollah has dealt a blow to the Lebanese militant group, but how big a blow is unclear. This is partly because Hezbollah, like most armed groups, has shrouded its precise military capacity in secrecy. Hezbollah is supported by Iran, which sees it as its most important proxy in the region, and for decades, Tehran has funneled weapons and other military technology to the group.
Here is a look at Hezbollah’s military strength as it wages war against Israel in support of Hamas.
How big is Hezbollah?
The C.I.A. World Factbook estimated in 2024 that Hezbollah had 50,000 armed combatants, although it said that not all were full-time soldiers. That would make it one of the largest militia groups in the region, behind the Houthis, who operate in Yemen and who the C.I.A. estimated had 200,000 fighters in 2022. Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, has said that his group has 100,000 trained fighters.
One of Hezbollah’s political objectives, however, is to present itself as a giant capable of going toe-to-toe with Israel, and so Mr. Nasrallah has an interest in maximizing and potentially inflating the group’s size and capability, according to experts. It even opened a museum in southern Lebanon to showcase its fight against Israel.
“It is in Hezbollah’s interest to engage in psychological warfare that amplifies its power and capacity in the face of the enemy,” said Lina Khatib, an associate in the Middle East and North Africa program at the Chatham House research group in London. She said in an interview that Israeli officials had also inflated Hezbollah’s strength to support the country’s recent attacks, some of the heaviest aerial assaults in modern warfare.
What about Hezbollah’s weapons?
Hezbollah has perhaps the largest arsenal of any armed group in the world, excluding governments, according to experts. Aside from machine guns, rocket-propelled grenade launchers and mortars, the C.I.A. said, Hezbollah possesses around 150,000 rockets and missiles of various types.
In the past two decades, Hezbollah has “developed elements of a more traditional statelike conventional military force and demonstrated considerable military capabilities,” the C.I.A. said. It sustained huge losses during a conflict with Israel in 2006, but emerged intact, and, since then, its weaponry has grown in size and sophistication, according to experts.
But estimates vary. A report in March by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a research organization based in Washington, put the size of Hezbollah’s stockpile between 120,000 and 200,000 rockets and missiles and said they included guided ballistic missiles, short-range and midrange unguided ballistic missiles and short- and long-range unguided rockets.
“Because of Hezbollah’s close relationship with Iran, it is likely that Tehran would resupply Hezbollah quickly if it used this arsenal in a conflict with Israel,” the report said, adding that Iran’s relationships with Syria would facilitate the weapons pipeline.
One measure of Hezbollah’s strength is the weapons it has deployed against Israel in the past year. On Wednesday, Hezbollah said it had used a midrange missile in an attempt to strike the headquarters of Israel’s spy agency, Mossad, in Tel Aviv, a distance of around 70 miles.
The attack was an outlier, however. Hezbollah has launched more than a thousand attacks on northern Israel in the past year, using exploding drones, anti-tank missiles and short-range rockets that can carry around 44 pounds of explosives, according to an analysis on Tuesday by the Institute of National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University. Most have been intercepted by Israel’s missile defenses. One missile fired on Sunday hit a residential neighborhood in the city of Kiryat Bialik, which is around 17 miles south of the border. This appeared to have been its deepest strike to that point.
Hezbollah has also occasionally deployed a Burkan rocket, which has a range up to six miles and can carry a much bigger warhead, the report said.
Ms. Khatib argued that Hezbollah relied on Iran for its stockpile, but this was also a constraint, given sanctions on Tehran. At the same time, she said, the group had developed its own program to modify and upgrade missiles, as well as built a network of tunnels and bunkers in which to hide them.
What about longer-range missiles?
Hezbollah’s attacks have prompted Israel to order the evacuation of tens of thousands of people from northern Israel, but the group also has the capacity to target cities farther south.
The Institute of National Security Studies cited one missile in the group’s arsenal that had a range of around 130 miles and could carry a payload of more than 1,000 pounds. It described that missile, the Zelzal, as inaccurate, but said that Hezbollah could also use another type of missile, the Fateh-110, which is more advanced, precise and can exceed the Zelzal in range and payload.
Ms. Khatib said that Hezbollah would be loath to use its most powerful weapons in the present conflict and would most likely deploy them in the event of a full-scale regional war.
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