Hezbollah acquired an estimated $157 million worth of weaponry in 2024 despite its war with Israel, with the vast majority donated by the Islamic Republic at no cost to the Iran-backed group, according to Israeli Center for Research of Terror Financing’s new research published on Thursday.
The report, titled Hezbollah Financial Statements, is the first installment in a series set to expose Hezbollah's media spending, payments to wounded fighters, and spending on its military infrastructure.
Based on open-source information and valuations of known Hezbollah military assets, CENTEF estimates that Iran provided roughly $129 million worth of weapons and military equipment as an in-kind grant, while Hezbollah itself spent approximately $28 million in cash on its acquisitions.
Seeking to understand Hezbollah’s expenses as a business entity, to better assess the terror group’s financial health and identify ways to weaken it while avoiding the costly airstrikes that can have significant consequences for Lebanese civilians, the researchers examined the group’s weapons procurement and manufacturing costs, as well as its ability to sustain its arsenal if the Islamic Republic’s capacity to supply it were reduced.
Explaining the rationale behind the analysis, CENTEF CEO Sharon Gal told The Jerusalem Post that breaking down Hezbollah’s finances as a business could help legislators and operators efficiently identify and prioritize key supply chains to disrupt, creating pressure points on Iranian-backed terror groups.
Researchers aim for interactive tool on Hezbollah finances
Expanding those efforts, researcher Marc Cohen told the Post that they plan to release an interactive tool to help civilians understand Hezbollah’s financial statements, with the hope that it can raise awareness of Hezbollah's negative impact on the Lebanese economy and the scale of its operations.
The researchers looked at the different types of military equipment Hezbollah is estimated to have acquired in 2024, including rockets, missiles, drones, ATGMs, air-defense systems, ammunition, launchers, naval equipment, and IED-related assets.
Hezbollah’s own investment in its weapons is limited to small arms, ammunition, drone components, dual-use equipment, and equipment obtained through its international procurement networks.
Because Hezbollah’s weapons acquisitions are clandestine, the researchers had to estimate how many weapons the group acquired in 2024 rather than rely on procurement records. They used three methods: Analyzing Hezbollah’s historical rate of replenishing its arsenal, assessing Iran’s capacity to manufacture and deliver weapons, and comparing global benchmarks for the costs of equipping, training, and mobilizing military forces.
The first method was based on Hezbollah’s growth over the past two decades. According to estimates from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Hezbollah had approximately 15,000 rockets in 2006 and had expanded its arsenal to roughly 150,000 by 2024, amounting to an average increase of about 7,500 rockets per year over 18 years of Iranian resupply.
Acknowledging that Hezbollah's replenishment likely varied year-to-year, it estimated that the disruption to Hezbollah's supply chain and manufacturing abilities during the 2024 fighting resulted in them acquiring approximately 4,500 to 6,500 rockets and missiles during the year.
The second method considered Iran’s ability to actually supply Hezbollah. The researchers noted that Iran can only manufacture and physically deliver a limited number of sophisticated weapons, and those weapons must be distributed among Iran’s own forces and multiple proxies.
Iran is estimated to produce approximately 50 to 240 ballistic missiles per month and 1,800 to 3,000 attack drones per year total. This places a ceiling on how many guided missiles and drones Hezbollah could realistically have acquired in 2024. With that in mind, researchers analyzed the value of weapons in Hezbollah’s arsenal to understand exactly what Iranian support was worth and confirm that Hezbollah would be unable to afford such advanced weaponry without Tehran’s patronage.
Hezbollah arsenal includes heavy Iranian Falaq rockets, Katyushas
A staple of Hezbollah’s arsenal is the Katyusha rocket, alongside Iran’s heavier Falaq-1 and Falaq-2 rockets, which have 240mm and 333mm warheads respectively, and the crude, large-warhead Burkan rocket. The 122mm Katyusha is one of the few systems for which there is a publicly available price, at approximately $300 per round, while the Burkan is estimated to cost around $400 per rocket. Based on OSINT, the researchers estimate that Hezbollah acquired approximately 4,000 of the short-range rockets, 400 Falaq rockets, and 120 Burkan rockets in 2024.
Hezbollah’s inventory also includes Iran’s Fajr series and Syrian-origin heavy rockets. The Fajr-3 is a 240mm artillery rocket armed with a 45-kilogram warhead, while the Fajr-5 is a 333mm rocket with a GPS-guided Fajr-5C variant. CENTEF estimates that Hezbollah acquired approximately 600 rockets across this class in 2024, at an estimated cost of $2,000 to $10,000 per unit.
The inventory also includes the unguided Zelzal-2, which costs an estimated $25,000 per rocket, and the GPS-guided Fateh-110/M-600, a high-priority transfer estimated by JINSA to cost $110,000. The transfer can also be fitted with a $5,000 to $10,000 GPS guidance kit to turn them into a guided weapon. With Iran’s missile production shared among several recipients and the supply corridor repeatedly disrupted during 2024, Hezbollah’s acquisition of these systems was thought to have been tightly constrained and it is understood the group acquired only 60 Zelzal rockets, 40 Fateh-110/M-600 missiles, and 150 guidance kits.
The inventory also includes Iran’s Paveh land-attack cruise missile, which has a range of approximately 700 to 2,000 kilometers. Given its high unit value, CENTEF estimates that only about 12 were acquired in 2024.
Anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs) accounted for about 20% of Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel during its attacks after October 8, 2023, and were likely its largest-value weapons category, according to the researchers The Russian-made Kornet, supplied via Syria, costs approximately $26,000 per round, while Iran’s reverse-engineered Dehlavieh costs an estimated $12,000 to $15,000. Hezbollah also uses the Iranian Almas, older Konkurs and Metis systems, and the RPG-29. CENTEF estimates that Hezbollah received approximately 700 Kornet and 500 Dehlavieh rounds, 500 Almas missiles, and 400 Konkurs/Metis missiles, along with 30 launchers in 2024.
The RPG-7 standard squad-level anti-armor weapon, with reusable launchers costs about $350 and rounds $100 to $500, and CENTEF estimated that Hezbollah acquired approximately 800 RPG launchers and 15,000 rounds in 2024, with some rounds procured on the black market.
Hezbollah also acquired drones and unmanned aerial vehicles, including the Iranian Mirsad-1 and Ababil-T and small Shahed-101-class loitering munitions. Loitering munitions cost an estimated $20,000 to $40,000, while commercial and FPV quadcopters range from $1,000 to $15,000. CENTEF estimates that Hezbollah acquired approximately 300 Mirsad and Ababil drones combined, 200 loitering munitions, 400 commercial and FPV drones, and several reconnaissance UAVs in 2024.
Hezbollah’s air-defense inventory includes MANPADS cost roughly $5,000 to $100,000 each depending on the model, and it is thought to have also received 358 of Iran’s loitering surface-to-air missile.
Small arms, IEDs relatively cheap for Hezbollah
Small arms are comparatively inexpensive. Hezbollah uses AKM and AK-103 assault rifles, along with PKM and DShK machine guns and SVD sniper rifles. CENTEF estimates that it acquired about 5,000 rifles, 900 crew-served weapons, 80 mortar tubes, 15,000 mortar rounds, and 8 million rounds of ammunition in 2024.
Given that IEDs are relatively cheap to manufacture, and can be produced in Lebanon, the researchers estimated the group invested in 2,000.
CENTEF is also gathering data on how Hezbollah spends money on its civilian arm, including through charities that provide assistance to residents of Lebanon’s south displaced through the group’s wars. Though still analyzing the cost of Hezbollah’s media landscape, it has already come to the estimation that Hezbollah spent $26 million to $28 million on media in 2024, with Al-Manar alone accounting for $16.5 million to $17.2 million.
The researchers said understanding these expenses, alongside Hezbollah’s military spending and Iran’s support, could provide a fuller picture of the group’s financial dependencies and generate more choke points to pressure it.