High in the hills of Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, much of the heart of the town of Nabi Chit lies in ruins from an Israeli airstrike.
Heavily damaged buildings ring a huge crater filled with rubble. One full side of a former apartment building is missing, leaving a gaping opening.
Two weeks into this deadly new war between Israel and Hezbollah, the mayor of Nabi Chit stands on a ledge overlooking the damage.
“We are not invading [the Israelis]. They are the ones invading us,” Hezbollah supporter Wehbi al-Moussawi told CBC.
“We will all rally and we are going to kill them with our own hands,” he said. “We are not going to let the Zionists fulfil their dreams.”
His remarks are core Hezbollah messaging, sidestepping the fact that Hezbollah launched missiles into Israel to avenge the assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, it said, pulling Lebanon into the wider war.
Now, Hezbollah targets are being pummelled by Israeli airstrikes. Smoke curls up from hits on the southern suburbs in Beirut daily.
In central Beirut, a multi-storey building allegedly hiding millions of dollars in gold and cash for Hezbollah underground was hit a second time on Wednesday morning, collapsing entirely. It was part of a new wave of attacks.
Some in Lebanon are calling this “the last war,” an existential fight for Hezbollah, which is listed as a terrorist organization by Canada and multiple other countries.
With its ally Iran under attack by the U.S. and Israel, and the Israel Defence Forces pounding Hezbollah’s weapons storage and infrastructure and killing senior leadership, can the militant group survive this war?
“With a weakened Iran, Iran cannot be very helpful to Hezbollah anymore,” retired Lebanese armed forces brigadier-general Khalil Helou said in an interview in Beirut.
“Regarding money, regarding weaponry, regarding the logistical support and the training, I think that this will be extremely difficult.”
But he cautions Hezbollah has demonstrated it still has the capacity to launch volleys of rockets into Israel, in some cases co-ordinating with Iran.
Nearly daily rockets and drones are reaching parts of Israel, proving Hezbollah is still a considerable threat, he said.
“The capacity to fire 200 missiles in one day or in a few hours is really a performance,” said Helou, referring to a large strike co-ordinated with Iran last week.
Disparity in military and air power
“Ultimately, Hezbollah is a loser,” Helou said, noting that Israel’s military and air power far outstrip the militant group’s.
“The Israelis, they have the upper hand, but will Hezbollah still be around in a few months? The answer is yes.”
Some Lebanese, however, are fed up and quietly want Israel to finish the job, says Ali Hamade, a political analyst and columnist at An-Nahar newspaper in Beirut.
“You will hear a lot of Lebanese, Christians, Druze, even a lot of Sunnis, saying they want to get rid of Hezbollah at any cost,” he said.
“They don’t like Israel, they know it is a problem, but they want this saga of Hezbollah to end.”
Canada, the U.K , Germany, France and Italy in a joint statement this week said Hezbollah must stop firing rockets into Israel and urged Lebanon and Israel to find a political solution.
In the midst of the escalating war, Hezbollah controls access and the message. To visit Nabi Chit, in the hills, we had to have a Hezbollah escort who led us in and out of town.
Screening who comes in and out
It’s the same anywhere Hezbollah has control — it operates as a de facto military, screening who comes in and out. It sends out media invitations to tour damaged sites, controlling who speaks for the militant group but without censoring what is reported.
Hezbollah is still dug into many corners of Lebanon and has strong support, especially from Shia communities in the south, the southern suburbs of Beirut and the Bekaa Valley in the east.
“Even if we lose all our homes, we will not mourn the rubble,” said Jano Alawie, who fled her home in the south for temporary security in Beirut.
“The resistance is protecting us.”
We met Alawie at an Islamic school doubling as a shelter. She was the only person allowed to speak with us.
“When our kid is born, his first word is Hezbollah. What do you think he will say when he grows up?” she said.
As the Israeli military and Hezbollah continue to exchange strikes, analysts say the Iran-backed militia in Lebanon is losing fighters, infrastructure and some of its ability to re-arm. For The National, CBC’s Susan Ormiston examines its control and visits a village in the Bekaa Valley to find out why people still support the group, despite years of fighting.
More than one million people in a country of nearly six million have been forced out of their homes, according to Lebanese authorities. Many of those are from Shia villages in southern Lebanon.
A humanitarian crisis threatens to worsen fragile security in Lebanon, Helou said.
“What the Israelis are doing is they are solving their problem, but transferring their problem to other parts of Lebanon.”
Back in Nabi Chit, we are directed by our Hezbollah escort to a local cemetery, where there are fresh graves. In a corner, there is an unmarked plot that was dug up and then covered over.
Israel said its forces who landed near here on March 7 were trying to recover the remains of an Israeli airman who went missing in Lebanon nearly 40 years ago. In the deadly nighttime raid, they reportedly dug out the plot but found nothing. Local fighters engaged in a firefight and 41 people were killed, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.
At the graveyard, a man approaches us, pointing to two graves adorned with flowers. He said two cousins were killed that night.
Mohammed al-Moussawi speaks to us in English, saying Israel will not be able to finish off Hezbollah.
“They are trying. Let them try,” he said. “At the end, they are going to stop, they are firing and playing with lions.”
No time to linger
We can’t linger — the tour is leaving for its next stops at nearby villages hit by airstrikes that morning — and the Hezbollah guide motions to us to hurry up and get back in our car.
In Tamnin al-Tahta in eastern Lebanon, smoke rises from a pile of twisted metal and concrete rubble. A fire smoulders in the middle. Ten people were killed, including four children, says the Health Ministry. Some of them were Syrian workers and their families.
A man who tells us he’s a farm worker takes us into his tent to show us where the shrapnel busted up the wooden structure and pierced holes in his tuk-tuk parked outside.
There was nothing here, he said of the attack site, which appeared to be a cement block factory.
Israel says it is hitting Hezbollah infrastructure and weapons storage and launches but there’s no confirmation of what the target was.
More than 900 people have been killed so far in Lebanon during two weeks of war, according to the country’s Health Ministry.
Pressure is mounting from the international community, including Canada, for the Lebanese government to negotiate with Israel, but so far Israel has rejected talks until Hezbollah disarms. Hezbollah rejects disarming in the face of what it calls continued Israeli aggression.
A disarmament agreement was negotiated with a previous ceasefire and in 2025 the Lebanese Armed Forces and UNIFIL, a United Nations peacekeeping force, worked to disarm Hezbollah south of the Litani river to the Israeli border.
It was partially done, said Ali Hamade, “but they never said that it was a deep cleaning.” Hezbollah still had a cache of arms to draw on, he said.
With the outbreak of war here on March 2, the Lebanese government officially declared a ban on Hezbollah’s military activities and rejected launching any missiles or drones from Lebanese territory, but how that would be enforced now, during active war, is unclear.
“The Lebanese are watching and living stoically with this whole crazy dangerous situation,” said Hamade.
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