From Longtime Foes to Calls for a Fresh Start: Where Are Hezbollah and Saudi Arabia Headed?

As pressure mounts on Hezbollah from both inside Lebanon and abroad, the group’s deputy leader, Sheikh Naim Qassem, made a striking overture to Riyadh, urging Saudi Arabia to turn the page and rally around a common enemy: the Israeli Occupation.

In a televised speech on September 20, 2025, Qassem called on the kingdom to engage with the resistance movement under three principles. First, open dialogue to address disputes, ease concerns, and safeguard interests. Second, agree that the Israeli Occupation and not Hezbollah is the real adversary. Third, set aside old disputes, at least for now, to unite against “Israel.”

Qassem, 72, said the regional landscape had been fundamentally altered after “Israel’s” aggression on Qatar, warning that Israeli ambitions stretch from Palestine and Lebanon to Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Iran.

He stressed that Hezbollah’s weapons are directed solely at the Israeli Occupation, not at Saudi Arabia or any other party, and that this stance “will not change.”

No immediate Saudi response followed Hezbollah’s call.

Hezbollah and Saudi Arabia

Hezbollah’s overture for a fresh start with Saudi Arabia comes as the group faces mounting political and military pressure at home. In August 2025, the Lebanese government instructed the army to draw up a plan to disarm Hezbollah by the year’s end.

Army chief Rodolphe Haykal presented a five-phase proposal to the cabinet in early September. The first stage, lasting three months, would see all weapons south of the Litani River—just 30 kilometers from the Israeli Occupation border—brought under state control. Later phases would extend to other regions, including Beirut and the Bekaa Valley, though without firm deadlines.

At the same time, Israeli drone strikes continue targeting Hezbollah members. “Israel’s” October 2023 aggression on Lebanon escalated into a full-scale war by September 2024, leaving more than 4,000 people dead and nearly 17,000 wounded. A ceasefire reached in November 2024 has been breached over 4,500 times, according to official figures, killing at least 273 people and injuring more than 600. The Israeli Occupation also continues to occupy five hills seized during its war, in addition to territory it has held for decades.

Saudi Arabia, once a major benefactor, spent billions rebuilding southern Lebanon after the 2006 war and deposited funds in the central bank. But as Hezbollah’s influence in Lebanon and the wider region grew, thanks to Iranian backing, Riyadh pulled back.

Tensions reached a breaking point in 2021 when Saudi Arabia expelled the Lebanese ambassador, recalled its envoy, and banned imports from Lebanon. At the time, Saudi media declared that Hezbollah had effectively captured decision-making in the Lebanese state.

“We see no useful purpose of engaging with the Lebanese government at this point in time,” Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan al-Saud told France 24 television in an interview aired on November 14, 2021.

“We think that the political class needs to step up and take the necessary actions to liberate Lebanon from the domination of Hezbollah, and through Hezbollah, Iran.”

Phase of Hostility

The late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, assassinated in an Israeli Occupation attack on Beirut in September 2024, once branded Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman a “terrorist” while repeatedly slamming Riyadh’s war in Yemen. Saudi Arabia, in turn, accused Hezbollah of dispatching fighters to aid the Iran-backed Houthis against the Saudi-led coalition.

In October 2021, Riyadh’s Presidency of State Security formally designated Lebanon’s al-Qard al-Hasan Association—widely seen as Hezbollah’s financial backbone—an extremist entity. The institution, founded in the 1980s as a charity, operates outside Lebanon’s monetary and credit laws. By July 2025, the Central Bank of Lebanon followed suit, banning banks and financial institutions from engaging with unlicensed groups, specifically naming al-Qard al-Hasan.

Until the political shake-up that brought Joseph Aoun to Lebanon’s presidency and tasked Nawaf Salam with forming a government in early 2025, Hezbollah’s influence over cabinet ministers was profound. Criticism of Saudi Arabia by government officials often echoed Hezbollah’s positions at home and across the region.

Tensions boiled over in late 2021 after old remarks by media personality George Kordahi (a minister of media at the time) resurfaced, defending Iran-backed Houthis as “resisting foreign aggression” by Saudi Arabia and the UAE. His comments triggered a diplomatic crisis. Soon after, former Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib came under fire when Saudi daily Okaz leaked recordings in which he disparaged Gulf support for Lebanon and accused Riyadh of imposing “impossible conditions” to curb Hezbollah’s influence.

Bou Habib told Reuters at the time, “If what they want is only Hezbollah’s head, we cannot give them that. We are Lebanon.”

Even then-Prime Minister Najib Mikati was forced to distance his government from Nasrallah’s attacks on Saudi Arabia in early 2022, reiterating Lebanon’s “policy of disassociation” from Arab disputes.

Nasrallah, however, doubled down, accusing Riyadh of backing ISIS and extremist groups and claiming Saudi Arabia sought to turn Lebanon into an “emirate.”

Still, by April 2022, after more than five months of strained ties sparked by Kordahi’s remarks, Saudi Arabia announced the return of its ambassador to Beirut, framing the move as necessary to “restore Lebanon to its Arab fold.”

The animosity runs deeper. In March 2016, the Gulf Cooperation Council formally labeled Hezbollah a terrorist organization, denouncing its actions as a threat to Arab national security. Months earlier, Saudi Arabia had frozen a multibillion-dollar military aid package for the Lebanese army, citing Hezbollah’s grip on Beirut’s politics.

And as early as November 2015, Riyadh had imposed sanctions on 12 Hezbollah-linked individuals and entities, freezing their assets in the kingdom.

Core Demands

At the heart of the debate lies a pivotal question: will Saudi Arabia respond to Hezbollah’s call for a fresh start at a time when the group’s influence inside Lebanon is already on the decline?

Ammar Jallou, a researcher on Iranian affairs, told Al-Estiklal that Riyadh is unlikely to take Hezbollah’s hand. “Saudi policy is clear: it deals only with governments,” he said, noting that when it comes to Hezbollah, Saudi Arabia prefers to negotiate through Iran, particularly since the 2023 rapprochement between Riyadh and Tehran, brokered by China.

The regional climate is tense, and Hezbollah is seen as a driver of instability: first through its military involvement in Syria, then by training and advising Houthi fighters in Yemen and helping them manufacture weapons. “That’s what angers Saudi Arabia most,” Jallou added, “because it poses a direct threat to the kingdom’s national security and to other Gulf states, on top of the so-called support front for Gaza.”

Saudi Arabia and Yemen accused Hezbollah as far back as February 25, 2016, of training Houthis and planning terrorist operations on Saudi soil, pledging to present evidence and documents to both the Arab League and the UN Security Council. The Yemeni government at the time claimed to have material proof of Hezbollah’s involvement.

According to Jallou, Hezbollah’s outreach to Riyadh now looks like an attempt to secure political backing while its domestic clout wanes. Other Lebanese parties—chief among them Hezbollah’s fiercest rival, the Lebanese Forces—have grown closer to Saudi Arabia. That relationship was symbolized in 2024 when Riyadh’s ambassador in Beirut presented party leader Samir Geagea with an ornate Saudi cloak as a gift.

The timing mattered: Hezbollah was then blocking the election of any president who would not reassure the “resistance.” But the battlefield quickly turned against the group. Its showdown with the Israeli Occupation weakened Hezbollah, killed senior commanders, including its longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah, and eroded its influence.

That shift was cemented when Joseph Aoun was elected president and Nawaf Salam was tasked with forming a government—two leaders not aligned with Hezbollah’s agenda. Under their watch, a landmark plan was rolled out to disarm Hezbollah, a move that rattled the group’s political calculations and pushed it to seek a way out of its domestic deadlock.

Externally, too, Hezbollah’s network of alliances has frayed. Bashar al-Assad’s grip on Syria collapsed, and Iran has scaled back and is now under U.S., Israeli, and European pressure over its nuclear program, with Brussels threatening sanctions if Tehran doesn’t comply with international commitments.

“Hezbollah knows Saudi Arabia’s ability to exert pressure on any actor, regional or beyond,” Jallou said. “That’s why the group is extending a hand now, despite its long history of provocation toward the Gulf.”

But for Saudi Arabia, Jallou added, any opening comes with conditions: Hezbollah must respect the sovereignty of Lebanon’s government, contribute to internal and regional stability, seriously commit to disarmament under the government’s plan, stop interfering in other nations’ affairs, especially in Yemen, and, perhaps most crucially, draw a clear line between itself and Iran.