Could Hezbollah defeat Israel?

'World's best-armed non-state group' on brink of all-out war with neighbour as UN chief warns of regional 'catastrophe'

Illustration of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, militants with rifles, a map of Lebanon and Lebanese supporters marching
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah claims he has more than 100,000 fighters at his disposal
(Image credit: Illustration by Stephen Kelly / Alamy / Shutterstock / Getty Images)

"One rash move – one miscalculation – could trigger a catastrophe that goes far beyond the border, and frankly, beyond imagination."

That was the stark assessment of UN Secretary-General António Guterres last Friday, as tensions between Israel and Lebanon's Iran-backed militia group Hezbollah threaten to boil over into open war for the first time in nearly two decades.

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Elliott Goat is a freelance writer at The Week Digital. A winner of The Independent's Wyn Harness Award, he has been a journalist for over a decade with a focus on human rights, disinformation and elections. He is co-founder and director of Brussels-based investigative NGO Unhack Democracy, which works to support electoral integrity across Europe. A Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Fellow focusing on unions and the Future of Work, Elliott is a founding member of the RSA's Good Work Guild and a contributor to the International State Crime Initiative, an interdisciplinary forum for research, reportage and training on state violence and corruption.