Tens of Millions of Dollars from Iran for Hezbollah After 3 Months of Preparing for Possible Fighting
Key Facts
Hezbollah spent 3 months preparing for the possible resumption of fighting with Israel after receiving money from Iran, according to Lebanese security officials briefed on the group’s activities, quoted in a Reuters report on October 26, 2026. The report places those preparations in the context of the lull that followed fighting since June and says the group used it to rearm. Two Lebanese security sources said the focus included buying explosives and producing drones that could be directed at Israeli positions. The report also quoted a security source and a person close to Hezbollah as saying the group received tens of millions of dollars from Iran to strengthen its military capabilities. The sources did not say that this funding was exclusively for rebuilding its arsenal.
According to the two security sources, the lull since June allowed the group to work on buying explosives and producing drones, a process the report links to preparations for a possible return to clashes with Israel. Reuters quoted a Hezbollah official and a Lebanese security source as saying explosives seized by Lebanese authorities in October were intended for explosive drones targeting Israeli forces. This supports the sources’ account of the group’s interest in producing drones that could be directed at Israeli positions, though the report gave no figures for their number or production volume. The report also said command-and-control structures disrupted in major battles were being rebuilt. But Hezbollah’s media office declined to say that these systems had collapsed.
The report described two streams of Iranian funding: tens of millions of dollars to strengthen military capabilities, and about 200 million dollars to help support displaced families. A previous Reuters report said Hezbollah received 200 million dollars from Iran to help Lebanese people displaced by that year’s war, citing two people with direct knowledge of the transfer. The October 26 report said the military funding came in addition to about 200 million dollars earmarked to support displaced families. The report thus distinguishes between newly reported military funding and humanitarian assistance disclosed in an earlier report, and does not attribute both amounts to the same purpose. It provides no independent estimate of the group’s total resources or how much of that money it spent.
In a broader context, the U.S. Treasury Department said, according to the earlier Reuters report, that Iran transferred 1 billion dollars to Hezbollah during the first 10 months of 2025. The figure places the funding described by security sources in October 2026 within a broader record of Iranian transfers, though the periods and purposes attributed to the money differ. The report did not provide details linking the 1 billion dollars directly to the latest military funding or to assistance for displaced people. On U.S. pressure, a State Department spokesperson said Washington would continue to choke off Hezbollah’s funding through sanctions and other measures. A Treasury Department spokesperson said Iran was running out of money and ways to move it.
The country also faces the high cost of reconstruction after the two wars since 2024; Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said the previous month that the cost could exceed 27 billion dollars. The estimate puts the reconstruction burden at the center of Lebanon’s situation, alongside the report’s account of funding for displaced people and military moves attributed to Hezbollah. On the international track in southern Lebanon, the U.N. Security Council voted in August 2025 to end the mandate of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, UNIFIL, at the end of 2026, according to the Associated Press. Peacekeeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix said none of the options for the form of a U.N. presence after the force’s mission ends had yet been decided. He added that negotiations at the Security Council on that presence would begin soon, and that a decision should be issued before the mandate expires.