ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Shownotes
After the assassination of its leader in September 2024, Hezbollah sank to its weakest point since its founding in 1982. Supporters began to doubt Hezbollah’s capabilities, and detractors—inside Lebanon and abroad—planned to dismantle the group. In March of this year, Lebanon’s government outlawed Hezbollah’s powerful militia. Many of Hezbollah’s competitors and critics declared the end of the group’s military capability and political base.
But Hezbollah’s strength has returned. This spring, as Israel has expanded its occupation of southern Lebanon, Hezbollah has fought effectively. It’s all looking very much like a comeback.
Century International fellow Sima Ghaddar has closely tracked Hezbollah’s constituents and power, and shares a granular look at how the group has revived, and how researchers can assess the notoriously opaque organization.
Related reading
- Nathan Brown, “Rubble is Israel’s Doctrine, Not a Case of Improvisation,” Carnegie Endowment, May 21, 2026
- Sam Heller, “Trump’s Lebanon Negotiations Are Breaking the Country,” Foreign Policy, May 15, 2026
- Sima Ghaddar, “Doubting the Party, Revering Its Ideology: Hezbollah’s Battered Constituencies Reckon with a Year of Loss.”
- US Treasury, “Treasury Targets Hizballah-Aligned Officials Obstructing Peace and Disarmament,” May 21, 2026
- Mohamad Bazzi, “Is This What War Looks Like Now?” Guardian, April 24, 2026
Participants
SIma Ghaddar is a fellow at Century International and a sociologist whose research spans humanitarianism, the politics of international aid, political sociology, and popular mobilization in the Middle East and the Global South. She holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of California, Los Angeles. Her dissertation, “Brokers of the Humanitarian Interface: The Politics of Aid in Lebanon’s Urban Peripheries,” examines humanitarian aid, transnational NGO governance, and the intersections of patronage, clientelism, and global aid systems in Lebanon. She is also a policy researcher specializing in Middle East politics. Her policy research focuses on hybrid armed actors, regional Shia politics, and social movements in Lebanon.
Thanassis Cambanis is director of Century International.
Date: Tuesday, May 25, 2026
Episode: Order from Ashes 114
