Hezbollah and its political ally, the Amal Movement, are pushing to preserve their influence over a significant share of the funds Lebanon will need for war compensation, reconstruction and healthcare, seeking to keep the money within State institutions where they have political and administrative sway rather than channeling it through a new independent mechanism, according to information obtained by Erem News.

The effort is focused particularly on issues that directly affect residents, including compensation for destroyed homes, rehabilitation of damaged areas, medical treatment and social services, according to a Lebanese political source familiar with the matter.

The dispute is not simply about how much money the Lebanese state will allocate, the source said, but also about which institutions will control the funds and ultimately deliver them to citizens.

Hezbollah and Amal are seeking to preserve the role of institutions where they have longstanding influence, particularly the Council of the South, as well as ministries and agencies responsible for health, labor, social security and other services.

Those institutions form part of a network of influence that the two parties have built inside the Lebanese state over decades, the source said.

The issue has become more pressing as Hezbollah's ability to pay compensation directly to its supporters, as it has done in previous conflicts, has weakened, while the cost of destruction, displacement and medical treatment from wars fought without a decision by the Lebanese government continues to rise.

Who will pay the bill?

Finance Minister Yassine Jaber has estimated that direct and indirect damage and losses linked to the war could reach about $20 billion, while Lebanon's 2026 state budget amounts to roughly 538.4 trillion Lebanese pounds, equivalent to around $6 billion.

Jaber told Reuters in May that the war could cost Lebanon up to $20 billion and said the economy could contract by at least 7% this year.

The minister said his estimate included damage from the previous conflict as well as the war that erupted in March, along with financial losses and lost government revenues.

The latest war began on March 2, when Hezbollah entered the confrontation in support of Iran, while the Lebanese government had not taken a decision to open the front. The economic and humanitarian consequences, however, quickly became a burden on state institutions.

The Treasury allocated $50 million to the Ministry of Social Affairs to deal with displacement, in addition to a $200 million agreement with the World Bank and 45 million euros from the European Union, Jaber said.

Lebanon is also increasingly relying on loans to finance its needs, he said.

The resulting pressure is particularly acute because the state is already struggling with a deep financial crisis and limited fiscal resources.

Health spending becomes a battleground

The Health Ministry is one of the most important channels through which war-related spending could reach citizens. It is headed by Rakan Nassereddin, who is aligned with Hezbollah, while the Labor Ministry is headed by Mohammed Haydar, also aligned with the group. The Labor Ministry has supervisory authority over Lebanon's National Social Security Fund.

During debate over the 2026 budget, Parliament's Finance and Budget Committee approved an additional 8 trillion Lebanese pounds for healthcare, bringing the overall allocation for medical treatment to about 25 trillion pounds, according to committee chairman Ibrahim Kanaan.

The issue is politically sensitive because Hezbollah and its allies have for years maintained extensive social and welfare networks among their supporters.

A previous study by Chatham House documented ties between Hezbollah-affiliated institutions and Lebanese state bodies. It said, for example, that the Martyr Foundation had received equipment, medicines and ambulances supported by the Health Ministry.

The study also pointed to cooperation between Jihad al-Binaa, a Hezbollah-affiliated organization, and the Agriculture Ministry.

Such cases do not mean that public money is transferred directly into Hezbollah's coffers. Rather, they illustrate how the group's institutions have developed relationships with government ministries and state administrations, creating an overlap between its own social infrastructure and official institutions.

That overlap could become increasingly significant as the state assumes a greater share of the costs of treating and assisting communities affected by war.

$90 million for the Council of the South

During debate over the 2026 budget, Hezbollah and Amal lawmakers pressed for reconstruction funding and tied their support for the budget to the allocation of money for areas damaged by the war.

The Finance and Budget Committee approved the transfer of nearly $90 million from the state reserve to the Council of the South. The Finance Ministry had previously transferred $16.7 million to the council in August 2025 for reconstruction.

The Council of the South has long played a central role in reconstruction and compensation in areas affected by conflict, particularly in southern Lebanon.

The government, however, has also established a separate channel for managing part of the reconstruction funds.

The World Bank-backed Lebanon Emergency Assistance Project is built around a scalable $1 billion framework. The bank initially committed $250 million to the project, which operates through a unified government structure designed to strengthen oversight and transparency.

That difference in approach lies at the heart of the current political dispute, according to the Lebanese source.

Keeping compensation and service-related programs within traditional institutions would allow Hezbollah and its allies to maintain a direct presence between the state and citizens, the source said. Moving the funds into a centralized and independent mechanism would reduce that role.

The question is therefore not merely who controls the money, but who controls the relationship between the state and the people receiving it.

An $11 billion reconstruction bill from the previous war

Lebanon's financial burden did not begin with the latest conflict.

The World Bank estimated that the 2023-2024 conflict cost the Lebanese economy $14 billion, including $6.8 billion in physical damage and $7.2 billion in economic losses from reduced productivity, lost revenues and higher operating costs. Recovery and reconstruction needs were estimated at $11 billion.

Of that amount, between $3 billion and $5 billion was expected to require public financing, including about $1 billion for infrastructure, energy, water, transport and municipal services.

Southern Lebanon and Nabatieh were the areas most heavily affected, followed by parts of Mount Lebanon, including Beirut's southern suburbs.

The new war has added another layer of destruction and financial pressure to a country that had not yet recovered from the previous conflict or its years-long economic collapse.

A network built inside the State

Lebanese writer and political researcher Ali Hamadeh said Hezbollah had, over years of political influence, succeeded in shifting part of the cost of its social system onto state institutions.

"The financial network of Hezbollah is based in part on benefiting from the resources of the Lebanese state through the various ministries that it controls directly or through its allies," Hamadeh told Erem News, pointing to the health and labor ministries, the social security system and other institutions in which the country's Shiite political alliance has influence.

This arrangement enables Hezbollah to provide healthcare and social services to its supporters without financing all of those services from its own resources, Hamadeh said.

The costs become significantly greater during periods of war, when the needs of communities in Hezbollah's strongholds for medical treatment, emergency assistance, compensation and reconstruction rise sharply.

The figures illustrate the scale of the challenge.

Hezbollah entered the latest war in support of Iran, but Lebanon, whose annual state budget is only about $6 billion, has once again found itself facing damage and losses running into tens of billions of dollars.

At the same time, Hezbollah and Amal are engaged in another battle: maintaining their influence within the State institutions that will be responsible for paying part of the cost of the war.