When we received news of the killing of a Hezbollah fighter on the final day before the ceasefire with Israel was declared last November, it was said at the time that his son had stepped away briefly to get food, only to return and find his father burning. He survived, but his father did not. A friend of the son told me then that he wouldn’t rule out the possibility that the son himself had informed on his father. Despite knowing the son’s tendency toward harm, I refused to even entertain the idea that anyone could provide Israel with coordinates leading to the death of his father and his comrades, especially if he was a member of the party.

But when the story of the suspect “M.H.S.” emerged—detained by the judiciary and reported to be the son of a fighter in the Radwan Force and close to other Hezbollah fighters who were killed in the recent war—suddenly, everything seemed possible. Since the war ended, stories have been surfacing about deep internal breaches within Hezbollah. But could it really be that some of its members would go so far in their collaboration as to not even care about the fate of their closest kin?

In recent years, with the exposure of more cases of collaboration with Israel, it’s become clear that the majority of these cases originate from within Hezbollah’s own circles. In fact, Hezbollah’s former Secretary-General, Hassan Nasrallah, openly addressed this in his last speech before his assassination.

The arrests of suspected collaborators from within Hezbollah’s support base reveal the fragility of the party’s internal security structure, and vindicate, at least in part, those who were defamed and accused of treason for years. Hezbollah had weaponized accusations of collaboration, turning them into a sword hanging over the necks of its critics and those who opposed its growing power within the Shiite community and in Lebanon as a whole.

The charge of collaboration is more than a political weapon: it is a tool of moral assassination. It strips a person of their social legitimacy and brands them as a traitor—morally and nationally—even before any legal judgment is made.

No longer is the charge of collaboration reserved for those who actually handle sensitive security coordinates or provide critical information. It is now used against anyone who dares to question the authority of the party. The accusation has even reached those simply demanding basic needs such as food, water, or electricity. It’s extended to media suppression and attempts to impose complete blackout in areas under the influence of Hezbollah and Amal.

The exposure of the M.H.S. case may explain Hezbollah’s insistence on absolving itself of any internal breach. Rather than confront the issue head-on, the party deflects blame onto politicians, journalists, or foreigners who happened to be in areas targeted by Israeli airstrikes. It feels like an attempt to deflect attention from the uncomfortable truth: that the real breach often comes from within.

For me, the discovery of this particular case wasn’t surprising. I’m among a large group of people who have suffered from smear campaigns and accusations of treason for years. We know firsthand how this charge is used to settle scores and silence critical thinking.

I remember the person who led a campaign of incitement and attacks against me and my family starting in 2020. He spread rumors through activists on social media claiming we were “collaborators,” to the point that the neighborhood where we were born began treating us like outsiders. Meanwhile, actual collaborators within the party continued to enjoy their privileges and immunity.

We saw how it was being circulated that we were “Zionists” in contact with the enemy, while physical assaults and threats followed us. We had to install surveillance cameras to protect ourselves, even though the security apparatus was complicit. But instead of the cameras deterring attacks, they became another accusation: “cameras connected to Tel Aviv!”

When the story of M.H.S. broke, Facebook reminded me of an old post from a friend joking about someone who had claimed I was “director of the Zionists’ office in Lebanon.” Even one of the party’s well-known mouthpieces accused me in front of a judge of threatening “national security”, just because I spoke about the role of an MP’s nephew in trying to kill me. I avoided escalation back then, hoping the party would distance itself from such actions. It never did.

Many others have faced similar accusations. Prominent journalists whose faces were photoshopped next to that of Israeli military spokesperson Avichay Adraee, or whose pictures were marked with the Star of David. These practices have become a routine weapon among the party’s supporters.

But in the end, Israel only recruits those who actually have access to the organization’s secrets, not those who dare to post critical words.

That’s what we always said: Israel doesn’t need opposition figures who are chased by the party day and night. It needs the ones sitting at the decision-making table.

What Hezbollah used to mock, it now has to justify to its base—shocked and angered by the exposure.

Thuggery Exposes Big Names

I was not surprised by the party’s collapse in the recent war, nor by the extent of the infiltration within its ranks. I’ve often told friends: “The party is much weaker than it claims, and much easier to penetrate than it lets on.”

I became certain of this as early as 2020, when my family was assaulted by members under the direct supervision of senior party officials, in addition to other political events. It was then that I began to see a clearer picture: the party that intimidates everyone with fire and iron is internally plagued by deep fractures.

At that time, the attacks revealed to me the names and roles of senior officials, including “Hajj Mohsen” and Fouad Shokr, whose name I hadn’t heard before he was assassinated by Israel in the southern suburbs. The members of the “cell” established by Shokr’s nephew, which included the sons of powerful party figures, were willing to expose the names of Hezbollah’s top leadership, simply to terrorize my family. That was when I realized the fragility of this organization, and how easily Israel could, through just one person, access a vast network.

“Where There is Fear, There are Always Traitors”

Thus, the culture of cliques and thuggery within the party, once a magnet for a younger generation drawn to the image of the “resistance fighter,” has become a vulnerable flank for infiltration. Anyone familiar with the party’s fragile internal relationships understands how jealousy, marginalization, or even material temptation might drive some members to collaborate with Israel.

And despite the party’s habitual secrecy, its former Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah publicly admitted in 2011 that two members had spied for the CIA, with a third under investigation. At the time, internal accounts spread that one of them had grown angry after being sidelined as a potential successor to Imad Mughniyeh, the senior commander assassinated in Syria in 2008. It turned out the motive wasn’t always financial. Sometimes it was settling internal scores or breaking out of long-standing marginalization.

In the end, the party is now paying a heavy price, and one of those prices is the very approach it chose: the collective branding of all dissenting voices as traitors.

This is a price that demands serious introspection from the party, and a halt to its reckless accusations and trivialization of such serious charges. Unfortunately, it seems determined to stick with a path that has brought us all to the brink.