Jewish communities and law enforcement in Latin America should be on high alert, after Israel killed Hezbollah’s senior command and destroyed large numbers of its weapons near the border, experts warned in recent interviews with Jewish Insider. 

There is “an incentive for [Hezbollah] now to try to hit soft targets abroad in response to what is happening to them in Lebanon,” Emanuele Ottolenghi, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told JI.

“The risk [to Jewish communities] has always been there, latent and present,” he added. 

Latin America has long been an important base of operations for Hezbollah, with activities originating in the border area between Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina, countries with large Lebanese populations. Those countries’ tri-border area has weak law enforcement that the terrorist organization uses for money laundering. Hezbollah later expanded into Venezuela as Caracas became more aligned with Tehran. 

In Latin America, Hezbollah is only considered a terrorist organization in Argentina, Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras and Paraguay, weakening authorities’ ability to prosecute members of its network in the rest of the region. The Lebanese terrorist group has long been involved in organized crime in Latin America to fund its terrorist activities around the world.

Hezbollah was behind major attacks in Buenos Aires: the 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy, which killed 28 and injured 242, and the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center, which killed 85 and injured over 300. Members of the original cells involved in the AMIA bombing remain in Latin America, Ottolenghi said. 

Yossi Mansharof, a senior fellow at the Misgav Institute for National Security, told JI that “Hezbollah always has the motivation” to attack Jewish sites around the world, but may be increasingly motivated to do so now. (Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov is also a senior fellow at the Misgav Institute.)

“If Hezbollah thinks they are moving away from the eyes of the CIA and the Mossad, they’ll go for it,” he said.

In November 2023, Brazil, in cooperation with the Mossad, thwarted planned Hezbollah attacks on the Jewish community. 

Israel’s recent capture of a Hezbollah ship captain who had a Panamanian passport was an indication of Latin America’s continued importance to the terror group’s operations, Ottolenghi said.

After Israel eliminated much of Hezbollah’s senior leadership, Ottolenghi said, “the survival of the movement is at stake.” 

Ottolenghi noted that “the challenge will be how to manage to bring that money into Lebanon … The ability to transfer funds might be diminished, but the incentive to increase may be greater.”

Hezbollah will need to launch a major fundraising effort to try to rebuild, Mansharof said, calling it the “biggest project in its history after receiving its worst blow since its establishment in 1982. They need billions of dollars that Iran can’t give them because they are in an economic crisis.”  

Latin America is an easy place for Hezbollah to raise and move funds despite sanctions, Mansharof said. 

“There’s a problem in Argentina,” he said. “Even when there are sanctions, Hezbollah manages to circumvent them. They need a very strong effort … to enforce sanctions and make arrests.” 

Mansharof said that the Lebanese Shi’ite community, Hezbollah’s base in Latin America, is now doubly important.

“Hezbollah will make sure that the large Shi’ite community in Latin America will remain loyal,” Mansharof said. “They will feed propaganda to preserve the base … They need to make it look like they won.” 

Ottolenghi said that Hezbollah is embedded in the Shia Muslim and Lebanese expat communities in Latin America, through mosques, cultural centers, schools and youth groups. 

“When [Hezbollah leader Hassan] Nasrallah was killed, they organized public memorial services for him,” he noted. “These are networks that not only can be leveraged, but have been and are now more militantly committed than before, because there is a struggle going on.” 

In addition, Ottolenghi said, thousands of people left Lebanon for Latin America in recent months, as Israel began its ground invasion.

“They are very publicly and visibly raising funds and facilitating the return of dual nationals to Brazil and Colombia,” he said. “One concern expressed by my contacts in the region is that they do not know who the people coming back are – they have a list of names and travel documents but don’t know who may be connected to Hezbollah, and there are thousands.”