The following report is now a complimentary offering from MEMRI's Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor (JTTM). For JTTM subscription information, click here.
On December 23, 2024, the Lebanese news site LebTalks published a report claiming that one thousand Lebanese Hizbullah fighters cannot be accounted for, and that the organization's leadership is evasively not providing their families with answers.
Mocking Hizbullah's claim to have won its recent war with Israel, the report asserts that "the truth [of its loss] is crystal clear to anyone who has seen and followed the events." After the "Israeli enemy inflicted many human, material and financial losses on Hizbullah and Lebanon," the organization now stands bewildered in the "face of rising cries of protest in the Beqaa [valley]." According to the report, these protests are linked to approximately one thousand young men who were fighters in the organization's units, and with whom contact has been lost.
"Exclusive information," LebTalks asserts, indicates that contact with the men was lost in Syria, and not in southern Lebanon. Their families turned to Hizbullah leadership for answers, and were told that the men are in Iraq. However, their attempts to contact them there have failed.
Other sources indicate that contact was lost following the Israeli bombing in Palmyra, "while other [fighters] fell in the first days of clashes with [Syrian jihadi group] Hay'at Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS)." Of this last group, some may have managed to escape, but "lost their way."
The report concludes: "It appears that Hizbullah's leadership is on the path to losing control even of this supportive environment, as one 'bitter' piece of news follows another."
The full text of this post is available to subscribers.
Please login or register to request subscription information from MEMRI
