Israel vs Iran-backed Hezbollah & Hamas — Who’s more powerful?

Israel has been engaged in a “multi-front war” with Iran-backed Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. After the October 7 attack by Hamas in Israel, the recent pager blasts and walkie-talkie explosions targeting members of Hezbollah escalated the tensions in the Middle East. Israel eliminated key Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in September.
As fears grew over the possibility of an “all-out” war in the region, here’s a deep dive into the strength and capabilities of Israel, Hamas and Hezbollah.
Israel is among the Top 20 global military power, according to the Global Firepower Index. The Israeli arsenal includes frigates, destroyers, submarines, missile boats, tanks, helicopters and a large drone fleet. They reportedly have hundreds of F-16s and F-35s.
According to the Global Firepower Index, there are 89,000 Air Force personnel, 5,26,00 army personnel and 19,500 Navy personnel. Israel is said to have 1,70,000 active troops.
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) also possess autonomous “loitering munitions,” known as suicide drones. These include Harop and Harpy models, which can track and eliminate moving targets.
According to the Newsweek, the Israel Defense Forces’ arsenal includes “around 2,200 tanks, primarily the Merkava platform, supported by about 300 towed artillery pieces, 650 self-propelled guns, and 300 rocket artillery systems like the US-developed M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System.”
Besides, the IDF extensively benefits from an intelligence unit, technology, comprehensive support infrastructure, and a well-organized command structure.
Israel also has the first cannon in the world, the “Thunder”, that is capable of automatic firing. It is a 155mm 8×8 wheeled self-propelled howitzer and “is intended to be a replacement for hundreds of M109s in the Israeli Artillery Corps.”
Operational model for the “Thunder” cannon: Watch
Hezbollah is believed to be one of the most heavily armed non-state groups in the world. Its vast arsenal of rockets numbers as high as 100,000, SkyNews reported, citing some experts. Small, portable and unguided surface-to-surface artillery rockets may also be part of Hezbollah’s Weaponry. It may possess 20,000 to 200,000 rockets and missiles, as per the US-based thing tank.
Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in the alleged Israeli strikes in Lebanon in September, had earlier claimed that the group had 1,00,000 fighters, Reuters reported. In 2024, the Centre for Strategic and International Studies think tank estimated that the group “has approximately 30,000 active fighters and up to 20,000 reserves.”
However, experts cited by German media DW News believe that this number is an exaggeration and that the actual strength could range between 15,000 and 20,000 trained fighters – “with the potential to supplement this force with up to 30,000 part-time members”.
Hezbollah’s Fateh-110 have a 450-500 kg warhead, according to a 2018 paper published by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. Precision-guided rocket Fateh-110 is an Iranian-made ballistic missile with a range of 250-300 km (341.75 miles).
Hezbollah Vs Israel: Experts believe that Hezbollah’s rockets and missiles pose two distinct threats to Israel: One is the “continuous rocket, missile, and UAS barrages can kill or wound Israelis” and the “second threat comes from the tactical and operational effects of these systems: suppressing or attritting IDF forces to limit the effectiveness of Israeli operations.”
Meanwhile, the Centre for Strategic and International Studies stated that Hezbollah forces primarily consist of light infantry, which have been trained and built for stealth, mobility, and autonomy.
The US-based think tank further claimed the group had employed a version of what the US calls “mission command,” empowering subordinates to make independent battlefield decisions based on a commander’s intent.
“This force design has allowed Hezbollah to operate effectively under conditions of overwhelming Israeli firepower,” the report added.
According to reports, Hezbollah’s militia can deploy swarms of drones simultaneously against a single target to overwhelm Israel’s air defence systems. “Fighting in Syria has also given Hezbollah access to T-72, T-54/-55, and T-62 main battle tanks (MBTs),” the Centre for Strategic and International Studies stated.
Like Hamas, Hezbollah, too, built a network of tunnels and bunkers in the hills of southern Lebanon. It uses this infrastructure to launch ambushes and rocket attacks.
Palestinian militant group Hamas is claimed to have excavated a sophisticated system of secret ‘underground tunnels’ in the Gaza Strip, as well as parts of Israel and Egypt. These tunnels are designed to conceal and cover militants, making it difficult for the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) to track and locate them, German media DW News reported.
Hamas is also capable of executing surprise attacks on the Israeli army in the case of a ground incursion.
The military wing of Hamas is known as Izz el-Deen al-Qassam or al-Qassam Brigades. The exact number of fighters in the Hamas group is unknown. However, several sources have cited figures ranging from 7,000 to 50,000 troops.
Sources told Reuters that the group had a military academy training a range of specialisations, including cyber security, and boasts a naval commando unit among its 40,000-strong military wing. By contrast, in the 1990s, Hamas had less than 10,000 fighters, according to the globalsecurity.org website.
Hamas officials said earlier that the group has acquired a range of bombs, mortars, rockets, anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles. After the Gaza war in 2021, Hamas and an affiliated group called Palestinian Islamic Jihad managed to retain 40 per cent of their missile inventories, according to US-based non-profit Jewish Institute for National Security of America.
They kept roughly 11,750 missiles compared with 23,000 before the conflict. Ali Baraka, a senior Hamas official, had told Reuters that in the 2008 Gaza war, Hamas rockets had a maximum range of 40 km (25 miles), but that had risen to 230 km by the 2021 conflict.
Hamas Vs Israel: Experts believe that Israel may have the upper hand as compared to Israel. William F Wechsler, the senior director at the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Program, told Newsweek, “Israel is stronger than Hamas. It should be in everyone’s interest that Israel be massively stronger than Hamas.”