Inside Hezbollah: A firsthand account of escape from indoctrination

A Lebanese Shia, now seeking refuge in Canada after escaping Hezbollah indoctrination and surviving an assassination attempt by the Iran-backed group, has shared insider knowledge of Hezbollah's operations with Iran International.

Pledging allegiance to the Islamic Republic of Iran and its Supreme Leader, chanting death to Israel, death to America, is part of the daily routine for Lebanese kids going to schools linked to Hezbollah, said Hussein El Hajj Hassan.

Speaking over Zoom from Ottawa, Hussain recalls how young boys in his community were initially targeted by Hezbollah for religious indoctrination.

After being scouted, they would learn how to operate guns and weapons and taught that dying was a worthy cause of their mission, according to Hussain.

According to a report by the Anti-Defamation League, Hezbollah- run educational institutions and their umbrella organizations appear to reach more than 100,000 children a year in Lebanon.

"To believe in the culture of death. They want them to believe that their path is to die," he said.

They would start out by training in Lebanon and then some would go to Iran for what Hussain described as "intense training."

Some of these boys, who were in their early teens, died while training in Iran, and were later being adorned with ‘Martyr posters' and death announcements throughout his Beirut suburb, according to Hussein.

"Sometimes they would shoot while they were running during training, and some would be injured...others would get killed. But it's a risk they were willing to take."

“The society believed that Iran is the source. That they are providing all goods to Lebanon and to Hezbollah.”

Hezbollah was painted as a resistance movement existing to serve Lebanon, he said.

'A society within society'

Hussein said the structure of Hezbollah was very deep and secretive, but at the same time, its operatives and supporters in his Beirut suburb were open and obvious.

He described seeing men with weapons like Kalashnikovs in the streets, guarding buildings that were clearly used by Hezbollah agents. Hezbollah even had their own jails and religious courts, he recalled, saying it was like Hezbollah had created its 'own society within a society. '

"What we're seeing today in the war, Israel's hitting buildings. Hezbollah is hiding inside. We know that. When I saw that, I knew, I saw these buildings before."

"Hezbollah operatives owned gas stations and restaurants, all connected to a private landline network, separate from the rest of Lebanon," Hussain said. He added that they relied on pagers and walkie-talkies until September, when thousands of these devices, rigged by Israel, exploded, killing scores and injuring thousands of militiamen.

Hussein's mother, a Shia Muslim, sent her sons to a Christian school to receive a formal education, that included learning in Arabic, English and French. His dad, a supporter of Hezbollah, was absent from his life. He recounts himself as being lucky for that.

He said some of his uncles and cousins were – and may still be – Hezbollah members.

Hussein believes his cousins and other community members joined the ranks for either money, religious purposes or the desire for power.

Despite his mother’s efforts, he still wasn’t completely shielded from indoctrination, with the media he watched and society he lived in advocating against Jews and Israel.

"On television shows they would show Jews as evil, as a state or as people who just want to kill or want to conquer."

His mother is now dying of cancer, and Hussein can’t be with her. He feels like Hezbollah robbed him of a life in his motherland.

How Hezbollah held him hostage

While Hussain has gratitude for his new life and new beginnings – he admits he didn’t want it.

“No one wants to start from scratch. That's the cost I'm paying for. What Hezbollah has done to Lebanon.”

He recounts terrifying moments with Hezbollah that he described as life changing, leading to his decision to flee and seek political refugee status in Canada.

Hussain was protesting Hezbollah’s intervention in Syria in 2013, rallying outside the Iranian embassy in Beirut with his friends, when he says Hezbollah forces stormed out of the Iran embassy, indiscriminately attacking while the Lebanese army allegedly stood by and did nothing.

“We were protesting peacefully. We were attacked. And one of the leaders of these protests was shot in the abdomen and killed,” said Hussain.

His friend Hashem Salman was killed.

He watched it all unfold, pleading for help.

In another incident, he says he was talking outside his friend’s Beirut home, when a Hezbollah operative threw an explosive device at the two men. Hussain and his friend escaped unharmed, but he knew it would likely happen again – and the next time he might not be so lucky.

The assassination attempt, he believes likely resulted from his work as a journalist and as a peace activist, advocating for friendship between Lebanon and Israel.

After escaping near death, he said he received a call from the Lebanese army, telling him to stop writing articles as a journalist if he wanted to survive. He said the problem runs deeper than Hezbollah.

“It's not just Hezbollah. It's the absence of safety provided by the state, the government, from the police.”

The killing of Hassan Nasrallah

While Hossein doesn’t want war, he believes that military intervention was the only way to deal with Hezbollah. At least as a first step, he said.

He sees Iran as a wild card and can’t predict what move the Islamic Republic will make.

Does Iran want to move more towards nuclear negotiations and give up on Hezbollah as a bargaining tool in talks with the West or is the country weak, and unable to withstand Israel?

Whatever the answer is, will determine, how to further dismantle Hezbollah after Israeli military intervention, he said.

He believes that Hezbollah had become powerful through Iran, and its fundraising through crime. According to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), critical of Iran and its allies, Hezbollah’s overseas revenue streams include drug trafficking, blood diamonds, illicit timber and even human trafficking.

The killing of Hassan Nasrallah, the longtime leader of Hezbollah, who was assassinated in an Israeli air attack on Beirut last month, brought Hossein both shock and relief.

He felt Nasrallah was always “untouchable” but gained a sense of calm knowing he was really gone, feeling that it brought justice to his friend Hashem who he said was killed by Hezbollah operatives in the 2013 protest.

"We saw the police standing and just watching, looking. And there was a moment where I tried to run towards them. I came to the soldiers, and I was like, please take us from this area. And he pushed me back. He said, we don't have the orders to intervene to do anything."

Hossein told Iran International he is seeing a therapist to heal his wounds, but the wounds of his homeland Lebanon, cannot heal, until Hezbollah and Iran cease to coerce Lebanon into the failed state it has become, he said.