Hezbollah spent months rebuilding its arsenal of rockets and drones before entering the regional war, drawing on a monthly budget of $50 million — most of it from Iran — and its own weapons manufacturing, six sources familiar with the group’s preparations told Reuters.
The Lebanese armed group, battered in its 2024 war with Israel, had concluded that another conflict was inevitable and that this time it could face an existential threat, the sources said. Fearing Israel would eventually turn its attention from Iran to Hezbollah, the group decided to strike first.
“They knew they were next on the list,” a foreign official familiar with Hezbollah’s thinking told Reuters.
Hezbollah launched rockets and drones at Israel on Monday to avenge the death of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, pulling Lebanon into the war raging across the Middle East — a decision that caught some of its own officials off guard. The group’s media office head, Youssef al-Zein, told Reuters it would not comment on military operations but said Hezbollah had decided to “fight to the last breath.”
The $50 million monthly budget, confirmed by two of the sources, was earmarked primarily for fighters’ salaries. Iranian funds also helped finance rent for around 60,000 Lebanese — most from the Shia community that forms Hezbollah’s support base — who remained displaced after the 2024 war.
The group also replenished its stocks through local weapons production, though an Israeli military official told Reuters its manufacturing capability had been diminished. A second foreign official said new rockets and Iranian-made logistical materials had been positioned in southern Lebanon before the latest war began.
The pace of Hezbollah’s attacks this week offers a window into its stockpiles. It launched 60 drones and rockets on 2 March, the first day of its offensive, and a similar number the following day. By 4 March, it fired more than double that figure — a sign it had begun drawing from larger caches, according to one of the foreign officials. Israeli think tank ALMA estimated Hezbollah’s arsenal on the eve of its attack at approximately 25,000 rockets and missiles, mostly short- and medium-range.
A Hezbollah video published on 4 March showed a fighter assembling a drone in a wooded area. Dubai-based defence analyst Riad Kahwaji identified it as a Shahed-101, which he said could be produced locally.
Despite its rearmament, Hezbollah entered the war in a weakened state. It lost 5,000 fighters in the 2024 conflict — an unprecedented blow — though one Lebanese source said the group still had around 95,000 fighters.
Israeli strikes after the 2024 ceasefire targeted training camps, and in late February the Israeli military said it struck eight military compounds used by the elite Radwan force. Hezbollah had also been struggling to recruit new operatives as a result, two of the sources said.
Israeli military spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani confirmed Hezbollah “had a lot of arms left” and was seeking to rearm further. “They were trying to smuggle and we were preventing that,” he said.
(Reuters)
