I fought Hezbollah in Homs. Seeking revenge in Lebanon is wrong

The fiercest battles I witnessed came in late 2013, when we – rebels besieged in Homs – faced the advancing forces of Lebanon’s Hezbollah. By then, the militia had already seized al-Qusayr and its surroundings, emptying the southwestern countryside of Homs of its Sunni inhabitants. The fighting intensified in the Qusour district of the city, where we, under siege, clashed with regime forces spearheaded by Hezbollah’s elite units.

The defining confrontation unfolded in a residential complex we came to call the “Nahhas block”. There, our fighters killed dozens from Hezbollah’s Radwan Force, even as many of Homs’ own sons fell as martyrs. Despite the ferocity and duration of the battle, neither Hezbollah nor the Syrian army managed to advance.

This was not the Lebanese group’s first intervention in Syria, but it was among the most brutal. It would be followed by the deployment to Syria of more than 70,000 Shia militiamen from across the region – forces tied to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps and coordinated with Hezbollah’s leadership.

To grasp the scale of Hezbollah's betrayal of Syrians, one need only compare the Syrian response to Hezbollah in 2006 with Hezbollah’s conduct during the revolution. Syrians opened their homes to displaced Lebanese. In return, after 2011 Hezbollah’s fighters turned their guns on Syrian civilians. Among the first were snipers sent to dominate roads and shoot demonstrators in Homs and other rebellious cities.

This, then, is the neat version of events: Syrian hospitality repaid with violence and complicity in tyranny, ending – at least in theory – with liberation unmarred by sectarian revenge. 

The truth is more complicated. The wounds run deep, and while many Syrians have taken grim solace in seeing Hezbollah’s leadership fall and its supporters displaced, justice has been neither clean nor complete. Innocents, as ever, have paid the price.

Among the most harrowing episodes that I witnessed was the massacre in the orchards of al-Husawiya in early 2013. More than a hundred civilians – women, children and men – were slaughtered, many with knives, some of their bodies burned. It was violence steeped in sectarian hatred.

Now, reports circulate that the Syrian army may enter Lebanon. The justification? To hold Hezbollah accountable for its crimes and eliminate the threat it poses to Syria. Some go further, suggesting such a move would defend Lebanon’s Sunnis.

Despite everything recounted above, this must be firmly rejected.

No Syrian should endorse military intervention in Lebanon under the banner of retribution or moral duty – whether framed as “justice for crimes” or “protection of Sunnis”. Lofty slogans often conceal darker motives, and decisions that seem righteous in one moment can prove catastrophic in another.

Lebanon’s own memory of Syrian intervention in the 1970s and 1980s is instructive. It was not a noble endeavour but a functional one: to serve regional and international interests. It helped neutralise Palestinian armed groups seen as a threat to Israel, while simultaneously entrenching Hafez al-Assad’s rule at home and projecting his power abroad.

Nor does the argument for justice withstand scrutiny. Syria has yet to hold its own perpetrators accountable, let alone foreign militias or occupying powers. How, then, can it plausibly pursue justice beyond its borders when it has not begun to deliver it within them?

Timing, too, is critical. Syria, still fragile and only beginning to recover, cannot afford entanglement in a wider regional confrontation – particularly one intertwined with the Palestinian question.

As this crisis unfolds, Al-Aqsa Mosque has been closed to worshippers during the holiest month, under the guise of “temporary security measures”. Many see this as part of a broader, more troubling trajectory within Netanyahu’s government, influenced by religious extremists who view the present moment as an opportunity to reshape Jerusalem irrevocably.

For the first time since East Jerusalem’s occupation, Muslims have been barred from worshipping at Al-Aqsa. Meanwhile, fringe Jewish groups affiliated with the so-called Temple movement openly speak of rebuilding Solomon’s Temple and ending the Palestinian cause.

In this context, weakening Hezbollah today may inadvertently serve Israeli ambitions to dominate the region, which is a prospect openly entertained by some Israeli and American politicians. The old maxim rings true: the most effective weapon against an enemy is another enemy. Netanyahu himself has suggested as much: when adversaries fight, one should weaken both.

Syria has no stake in choosing sides in such a struggle. It would be folly to intervene at a moment when two adversaries are already engaged, particularly when one continues to oppress Palestinians and destabilise the region.

Hezbollah has not escaped what many Syrians see as the curse of Homs. Its leaders have been killed, its ranks shattered. Some see this as divine justice for its role in Syria.

But caution must guide what comes next. Syrians must ensure they do not, in turn, become the authors of injustice. They must not invite the curse of the oppressed – least of all Palestinians, who, even now, find hope in the setbacks suffered by their own occupiers.

Nor should Syria’s revolution, so vast in its promise, be reduced to yet another “functional state”: a pawn serving the interests of regional and global powers.