Pierre-Yves Baillet
In southern Lebanon, amid escalating tensions since the October 7 Hamas attack and Israel’s subsequent “Northern Arrow” military operation, Hezbollah has urgently reshaped its information warfare doctrine. Formerly a dominant political actor in Lebanon, the Shiite organization has seen its digital capabilities crippled and its propaganda networks disrupted as its political influence and combat power have waned. Now facing pressure on multiple fronts, including an intensive psychological and cyber campaign from Israel, Hezbollah’s cyber-combatants are pursuing a determined effort to modernize: leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI), foreign alliances, and digital influence campaigns to regain control of the narrative in a war that is increasingly fought online as much as on the battlefield.
Hezbollah’s Pre-October 7 Strategy
In the years prior to the October 7 attacks, Hezbollah developed a sophisticated information strategy based on several pillars, including mastery of traditional media, extensive use of social networks, and psychological warfare. This was illustrated by testimonial from one information fighter of the party, who explained:
“We had a strategy, more precisely: a work plan and guidelines. Our main mission was to monitor different social media platforms and wage war against any account opposing the resistance, regardless of who operated it or where it was based.”
Before October 7, the Shiite organization could rightly boast of being the leading cyber power in Lebanon, with a primary tactic of spreading false information on social media. “Our main target has always been platforms like X (Twitter) and Facebook,” said one operative. Indeed, Hezbollah uses social media platforms as part of its communication and propaganda strategy. The group has also employed Facebook to support operations: Hezbollah operatives posed as women on the platform to lure targets into installing malicious applications, thereby enabling surveillance or control of their devices. The same fighter added that “We had numerous software tools and thousands of accounts allowing us to dominate counter-propaganda against the resistance and maintain control over X […]. We also had software that enabled us to hack vulnerable accounts on Facebook and X.”
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