Lebanon's Amal and Hezbollah keep alliance intact as war reaches 100-day mark

As Israel's war on Lebanon passes the 100-day mark, the relationship between Lebanon's two main Shia political blocs remains intact. The Amal Movement and Hezbollah are still described as firm partners, despite the pressure created by the conflict and the wider regional diplomacy now under way. The development matters because both groups sit at the centre of Lebanon's Shia political landscape and have long shaped the balance between community representation and armed power.

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Amal is led by Nabih Berri, Lebanon's Speaker of Parliament, and has historically been Hezbollah's key domestic ally. Hezbollah is backed by Iran and remains both an armed and political force in Lebanon. The article says parallel negotiations between the United States and Iran, and between Israel and Lebanon, have brought Tehran's support for its regional proxies into sharper focus.

That, in turn, could have serious implications for Hezbollah's position. The piece says it is unlikely Amal will abandon its close ties with Hezbollah any time soon. At the same time, Amal's parliamentary representation and Berri's constitutional role could allow the movement to strengthen its standing as a patron of the Shia community within state institutions.

A Lebanese analyst quoted in the article argues that Amal has long been the most prominent political and institutional representative of Shia interests inside the Lebanese state, even when Hezbollah was at its strongest. The timing is significant because the war and the negotiations are unfolding together. If Hezbollah's role were to decline, or if it remained focused on internal restructuring, Amal could gain more room to manage relations between the Shia community and the state, as well as with outside actors.

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That would affect not only Lebanon's internal political balance but also the way external powers engage with Shia leadership in the country. The article presents this as a possible shift rather than a confirmed outcome. The background to the current alignment is rooted in the two groups' shared and sometimes competing history.

Amal was co-founded in 1974 by Musa Sadr and Hussein al-Husseini as the Movement of the Deprived, and its militia name, the Lebanese Resistance Regiments, gives rise to the Amal acronym. After Berri took over the party in 1980, many of its more religious supporters moved towards the newly emerging Hezbollah. The two sides later fought each other for territory during the Lebanese civil war, before becoming allies in the years that followed.

What remains unclear is how far the ongoing war and the diplomatic tracks involving Washington, Tehran, Israel and Lebanon will alter that long-standing arrangement. The article suggests Amal is likely to stay close to Hezbollah, but also that the pressure on Iran-backed groups could reshape Lebanon's Shia politics over time. The next developments to watch are whether the negotiations produce any change in Hezbollah's role, and whether Amal uses its institutional position to expand its influence further.

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