Hezbollah has begun moving parts of its organizational structure outside its traditional strongholds in Lebanon, buying and renting properties and relocating offices, personnel and financial assets in an effort to make its network harder to monitor and target, according to exclusive security information obtained by Erem News.

A Lebanese security source told Erem News that security agencies had been monitoring property purchases and rental operations since the 2026 war involving businessmen and intermediaries linked to Hezbollah.

The activity goes beyond individual real estate investments, the source said, and reflects directives from Hezbollah’s leadership to redistribute part of its structure away from areas where the group has maintained a strong presence for decades.

The operations involve the purchase or rental of apartments, offices and buildings outside Hezbollah’s traditional areas of influence in Beirut’s southern suburbs, southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley.

According to the source, businessmen use companies, intermediaries and names that have no direct connection to Hezbollah in order to conceal the identity of the ultimate beneficiary. The plan includes moving offices, personnel and financial and organizational assets to the new locations.

Focus on Areas Near Hezbollah Allies

Recent reports in Lebanese media have pointed to what they described as unprecedented property purchases in Baabdat and Sfayleh in the Metn district. The reports said property maps showed dozens of adjoining plots and that intermediaries and real estate companies were looking for land, including large, contiguous parcels near major roads.

The reports did not, however, establish that the properties were linked to Hezbollah.

The Lebanese security source said the search and purchases were concentrated more heavily in parts of Baabda, Aley and Chouf, as well as in Beirut neighborhoods outside the southern suburbs.

The areas share two characteristics, the source said: their geographic proximity to Hezbollah’s traditional centers of influence and the presence of Christian and Druze allies of the group in their surrounding political and social environment.

The information does not indicate that Hezbollah is seeking to alter the demographic makeup of these areas, nor does it implicate local residents or people displaced there in the group’s activities. Rather, it points to a specific network of properties that Hezbollah is seeking to use to distribute parts of its organizational structure.

That distinction is important following the 2026 war, which displaced large numbers of Lebanese from the south, the Bekaa and Beirut’s southern suburbs and triggered a broad movement of people seeking housing, renting properties and relocating to Beirut and Mount Lebanon.

Within that larger real estate market, limited purchases and rental transactions conducted through intermediaries can therefore be difficult to distinguish from ordinary civilian activity.

From Stronghold to Vulnerability

The information obtained by Erem News overlaps with an assessment published in March by the Israeli Alma Research and Education Center, which said that some command-and-control activity, meetings and residences of people linked to Hezbollah had shifted to Christian and Druze areas of Mount Lebanon and to Beirut neighborhoods outside the southern suburbs.

Alma assessed that geographically dispersing the group’s assets was intended to reduce their vulnerability to attack and complicate intelligence monitoring.

Recent military developments offer a possible explanation for the shift.

The capture of the Ali al-Taher complex exposed an underground network about two kilometers long containing command centers, weapons depots and facilities belonging to Hezbollah’s Badr unit, according to the Israeli military. The site had been one of the group’s main positions north of the Litani River.

The Lebanese security source said one of Hezbollah’s conclusions from the war was that concentrating offices, senior figures, organizational centers and financial assets in recognizable areas had turned the same geography that once offered protection into a vulnerability.

The group’s response, according to the source, is not to establish a “new southern suburb” in Mount Lebanon but to spread its footprint across smaller locations.

That means buying apartments, offices and other small properties in different places, without an obvious Hezbollah identity and without concentrating them under a single geographic address.

A More Dispersed Structure

The change is not limited to Hezbollah’s civilian and organizational infrastructure.

The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, or ACLED, has recorded a shift in Hezbollah’s military methods since March toward greater reliance on small cells, dispersed launch sites and remote operators rather than large and easily identifiable formations.

Direct clashes have also made up a smaller proportion of the group’s activity than during the 2024 war, while its use of drones and less exposed forms of attack has increased.

The developments point to a broader model in which large concentrations of people and assets are reduced and personnel, equipment and capabilities are distributed across a larger number of locations.

A “Second Ring” Around Its Strongholds

The redeployment does not mean Hezbollah is preparing to abandon Beirut’s southern suburbs, southern Lebanon or the Bekaa, according to the security source.

Those areas will remain the group’s main social and political strongholds, the source said. Instead, Hezbollah appears to be seeking to establish what could be described as a “second ring” around its traditional areas of influence.

Unlike its established strongholds, however, the new ring would have no clearly defined boundaries.

A property could be registered in the name of a businessman, an office rented through a company or an apartment owned by someone with no apparent connection to Hezbollah. The sites could also be spread across different towns and neighborhoods.

That could make the restructuring less visible than efforts to redistribute missile and weapons storage sites.

After years in which Hezbollah maintained a recognizable geographic footprint that could be mapped and monitored, the new security information suggests the group is seeking to retain its traditional strongholds while distributing part of its structure beyond them.

The result would be a network in which identifying a single “Hezbollah address” becomes considerably more difficult.

An Attempt to Adapt

Political analyst Bassam Suleiman said Hezbollah’s move to purchase and rent properties outside its traditional areas, if it is being carried out as part of an organizational decision, would reflect an attempt to adapt to a different security environment created by the war.

The group’s familiar geographic footprint had become a factor that made its organizational structure easier to monitor and target, Suleiman said.

He told Erem News that distributing offices, personnel and assets across mixed areas close to Hezbollah’s centers of influence would allow the group to reduce its geographic concentration without moving far from its core social environment and networks of allies.

The use of intermediaries and companies would also be consistent with an effort to reduce the visibility of the group’s organizational presence, Suleiman said.

But he warned that such a move could create political and social sensitivities in the areas where the redeployment takes place.