Since March 2, according to a non-exhaustive count by Le Monde, the Shiite militia-party, close to Iran, is believed to have lost 494 of its members in clashes with the Israeli army, including around 30 “commanders,” who were among the movement’s most seasoned elements.
Based on a non-exhaustive tally compiled from death notices published on social media by accounts affiliated with the party or with localities in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley—where the Shiite movement is strongly established—Le Monde identified 494 Hezbollah fighters killed in the field during confrontations with the Israeli army since March 2.
Around thirty commanders killed
Among them were about thirty senior figures described as “commanders,” who ranked among the most experienced members of the movement. Aged between 40 and 55, nearly all had fought in previous wars with Israel, as well as in Syria between 2013 and 2024, when Hezbollah intervened to support Bashar al-Assad’s regime, which was threatened by a Sunni armed insurgency and jihadist groups.
Among the roughly 500 identified fighters who were killed, 220 died during the final week of the war, at the height of the fighting in the towns of Bint Jbeil and Khiam. Several dozen of them came from these two towns or the surrounding villages, including many sets of siblings. This toll reveals Hezbollah as an organization where people fight and die as a family: more than twenty of those killed are described as “having joined their father,” who had died in a previous war.