Hamas seems intent on building up a fighting force inside Lebanon.
Early last December news emerged of a large-scale recruitment drive by Hamas in and around the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.
Dubbed Al-Aqsa Flood – in line with the name given to the October 7 massacre – the recruitment program was aimed at young men aged 17-20.
There are 12 UNRWA refugee camps in Lebanon, housing some half-million Palestinian refugees as defined by UNRWA – namely a hugely inflated number of patrilineal descendants of the Palestinians originally displaced during the 1948 Arab-Israel conflict.
Undeniable evidence of Hamas activity
Evidence of Hamas activity within Lebanon came to light on November 21 when an Israeli drone struck a four-man Hamas squad in the Lebanese village of Chaatiyeh. All four were killed in the strike, including Khalil Kharaz, Hamas’s deputy commander in Lebanon.
Opinion is divided as to whether this new Hamas initiative is in opposition to Iranian/Hezbollah interests – an attempt to seize the initiative and ramp up the anti-Israel conflict – or in support of them. A third possibility is that Hamas, in anticipation of military annihilation in Gaza, is preparing to use Lebanon as a new base for continuing its fight against Israel. That is the fear among mainstream Lebanese leaders and political parties.
Many denounced Hamas when it put out its recruitment call on December 4, accusing it of violating their country’s national sovereignty. Wasn’t it enough that Hezbollah had established a political and military grip on the weakened and impoverished nation, without Hamas elbowing its way in?
After all Lebanon, on its knees economically speaking, was already supporting two military machines – its own national army and the even stronger Hezbollah militia. A third loose cannon is the last thing Lebanon needs.
Opposition was particularly strong from Lebanon’s Christian community, among whom the painful memory of the country’s 15-year-long bloody civil war persists.
One of the key causes of that conflict was that Palestinian terrorists linked to Yasser Arafat’s Fatah organization had been operating with virtually complete freedom in southern Lebanon, launching attack after attack on northern Israel.
This gave rise to the region’s nickname of “Fatahland.” Lebanese Christians now fear the creation of what they are calling “Hamasland.”
If Hamas succeeds in its recruitment drive, the question may well arise as to whether it will operate as an independent militia. Any attempt at effective collaboration with Hezbollah would bring into play an inescapable difficulty that militates against harmonious terrorist relations. Hezbollah is a Shia Muslim organization while Hamas, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, is inescapably Sunni.
Separated by the full length of Israel – with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon – the intrinsic Islamic clash of traditions could be ignored. That would scarcely be possible were the two forces to attempt operating side by side, each regarding the other as infidels, apostates, and heretics.
For example, all was far from sweetness and light when fierce intra-Palestinian fighting broke out last August and September in Lebanon’s Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp, near Sidon. The clashes, lasting three months, were triggered by the attempted assassination of Fatah leader Mahmoud Khalil.
Sixty-eight people were killed in the conflict, which was finally brought to an end through the intervention of the speaker of Lebanon’s parliament, Nabih Berri. He spoke with both Fatah and Hamas leaders and arranged a truce. Quoting this incident, Lebanese officials have been pressuring Hezbollah not to let Hamas gain military ascendancy inside the refugee camps.
BOTH HAMAS and Fatah have a foothold within Lebanon, and Hamas’s latest recruitment drive is certainly partly aimed at achieving dominance over its Fatah rival. It has two other constituencies to win round – the dominant Hezbollah organization and the large Sunni sector of Lebanese society.
While Hamas does not have Fatah’s long-term connection with Lebanon, since October 7 it has, according to Mohanad Hage Ali of the Carnegie Middle East Center, “gained popularity specifically among Sunnis in Lebanon.”
The leading Hamas personality is Abu Obaida, the so-called “masked spokesman” for Hamas’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades. He invariably appears in public with his whole face and head enrobed in a red keffiyeh and only his eyes visible. His real name is unknown. He came to prominence in 2006, when he announced the capture of the Israeli soldier, Gilad Schalit, later exchanged for 1,027 Palestinian security prisoners.
In late October, exploiting its new-found popularity, Hamas organized a large protest in downtown Beirut. Thousands of people were bused in from around the country to take part as green Hamas flags filled Martyr’s Square. While much of the crowd was Palestinian, many Lebanese were also present.
Emboldened, Hamas has since launched military operations from Lebanon – like the 16 rockets fired by the Qassam Brigades targeting the northern Israeli city of Nahariya and the southern outskirts of Haifa. Israel said that it had identified about 30 launches from Lebanon.
“The IDF is responding with artillery fire toward the origin of the launches,” the IDF posted on platform X.
Many in Lebanon were convinced that the Hamas recruitment drive would not have been possible without the positive approval, and possible collaboration, of Hezbollah. How deep that collaboration runs is the subject of speculation. Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, will be aware that Hamas is trying to use its moment in the spotlight, allied to the unhappy conditions in the refugee camps, to expand its influence in Lebanon.
He may also believe, with some analysts, that with its recruitment drive, Hamas is initiating a longer-term aim of forming a new young cadre of supporters, deeply imbued with Hamas’s beliefs and objectives, to carry on its anti-Israel crusade from within Lebanese territory. Nasrallah, acting in accordance with Iran’s own longer-term strategy, will view any such intention with suspicion.
It is perhaps this disparity in influence that Hamas is intent on redressing, as it strengthens its position inside Lebanon and seeks to make it a second military front from which to continue its struggle against Israel’s very existence.
The writer is the Middle East correspondent for Eurasia Review. His latest book is Trump and the Holy Land: 2016-2020. You can follow him at: a-mid-east-journal.blogspot.com.