Money, money and money: A blueprint for defeating Hezbollah

The 15th-century Italian condottiere Gian Giacomo Trivulzio is credited with the observation that waging war requires three things: money, money and money.

More than 500 years later, this fundamental truth remains as valid as ever. Military organizations survive not only on ideology, weaponry and command structures, but on payrolls, procurement logistics and patronage. Deny them the ability to pay, move and reward, and even the most formidable armed groups begin to weaken.

Hezbollah is no exception. Its revenue streams are not secondary to its power; they are a precondition for it.

Money enables Hezbollah to build military capacity, pay operatives, train units, maintain welfare networks, consolidate support within the Shia community and buy influence across Lebanon’s political system. For years, service in Hezbollah was not only ideological but remunerative. Its fighters are often paid more than Lebanese Armed Forces soldiers, frequently in dollars. That financial advantage helps explain both the organization’s resilience and its ability to recruit and retain manpower. 

This reality is not immutable. Hezbollah’s central vulnerability remains its near-total dependence on Iranian support, which accounts for more than 70% of its total income. For years, the organization received monthly cash deliveries from Tehran routed through Syria—with the blessing and active support of the former regime of Bashar Assad—and through Beirut’s Rafic Hariri International Airport with the complicity of bribed officials at every stage.

When Iranian support came under pressure during periods of intensified sanctions, Hezbollah felt the consequences: Budgets tightened; salaries were delayed or reduced; the organization was forced to make difficult choices about priorities; and senior figures began questioning whether it could survive.

That is a strategic lesson Israel and its partners should draw. Hezbollah cannot be defeated by military pressure alone. Any serious strategy to weaken, disarm and eventually dismantle the organization must include a sustained campaign against its financial lifelines. In this effort, a critical asset has presented itself for the first time in years: Syria is now led by a president who is both ideologically opposed and deeply hostile to Hezbollah.

One of the most effective options available is the establishment of an Israeli-Syrian-Lebanese-American mechanism designed to interdict smuggling across the Syrian-Lebanese border. This could include the deployment of an international monitoring force, in addition to advanced technological surveillance and reporting systems that would dramatically raise the cost of illegal transfers. This could also include construction of a physical barrier along the border zone, targeted action against smugglers on both sides of the frontier, the reinforcement of Lebanon’s border security forces and continuous efforts to sever their ties with Hezbollah.

Equally urgent is the need to implement meaningful reforms at Lebanon’s airports and seaports, making the smuggling of funds nearly impossible. The path to this goal begins with the immediate dismissal of all officials suspected of having ties to Hezbollah, the deployment of advanced technological screening mechanisms and the placement of figures openly hostile to Hezbollah in key positions, including within the Lebanese Ministry of Transport.

The diplomatic immunity enjoyed by Iranian officials transiting through Beirut’s airport should be immediately revoked. This would close an avenue that has been systematically exploited to move cash to Hezbollah.

Choking off the financial pipelines would have a dramatic effect on Hezbollah’s fiscal position, but it would not be sufficient on its own. The organization’s remaining revenue sources must also be plugged: its financial and money-exchange networks within Lebanon, foremost among them the al-Qard al-Hasan Association; the donations it collects from Shia communities around the world; and the commercial networks it has cultivated over decades in the Gulf and across the Western world, and within Lebanon itself.

Such a campaign should be conducted in close coordination with Israel, the United States and the Gulf states, and must encompass a broad range of measures—economic sanctions alongside kinetic, cyber and information operations.

Defeating and disarming Hezbollah requires financial strangulation.

Too often, Israel restricts its view to the barrel of a gun when formulating a strategy for dismantling the organization—and that is a costly blind spot.

Without Iranian funding and its other revenue streams, Hezbollah will be left with a reality mired in hardship and a future shrouded in uncertainty, regardless of its military capabilities. The strategic transformation currently underway in the region and inside Lebanon presents an unprecedented opportunity to achieve this goal. Israel must seize it.