Hezbollah European Union. After the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 in support of the Free Lebanon State, Israel occupied a strip of south Lebanon, which was controlled by the South Lebanon Army (SLA), a Lebanese Christian militia supported by Israel. Hezbollah was founded in the early 1980s as part of an Iranian effort to aggregate a variety of militant Lebanese Shi'a groups into a unified organization. Hezbollah acts as a proxy for Iran in the ongoing Iran–Israel proxy conflict. Hezbollah was conceived by Muslim clerics and funded by Iran primarily to harass the Israeli occupation. Its leaders were followers of
Hezbollah that Hezbollah has "stepped up terrorist campaigns around the world." Hezbollah has close relations with Iran. It also has ties with the leadership in Syria, specifically President Hafez al-Assad (until his death in 2000) supported it. It's also a close Assad ally, and its leader pledged support to the embattled Syrian leader. Although Hezbollah and Hamas are not organizationally linked, Hezbollah provides military training as well as financial and moral support to the Sunni Palestinian group. Furthermore, Hezbollah is a strong supporter of the ongoing Al-Aqsa Intifada. American and Israeli counter-terrorism officials claim that Hezbollah has (or had) links to