Ali Damoush

Sheikh Ali Damoush (; born 1962) is a Lebanese Shia cleric and current head of Hezbollah's Executive Council. He took over the position after the previous head Hashem Safieddine, was assassinated on October 3, 2024. He was in charge of Hezbollah's External Relations Unit before that, and it is possible that he was still fulfilling this role as an additional charge. Efn|Damoush was also originally deputy head of Hezbollah's Executive Council.

Early life and education Damoush was born on 1962 in Akkar, Lebanon, and lived a traditional home with a father who was very knowledgeable in Islam and a mother from the Alawite community.

Following the civil war in Lebanon in 1977, he relocated to Najaf for his studies. He spent approximately two months at the Al-Adariyya religious school before Saddam Hussein’s regime arrested and deported him to Lebanon. The regime took Damoush, along with several Lebanese students, to study religion at the Najaf Security Center. From there, they took him to Baghdad Prison, where he spent eleven days before deporting him to Lebanon.

Damoush graduated from the Islamic Sharia Institute in Beirut, and a few months after the victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran under the leadership of Imam Khomeini in 1979, he emigrated to the city of Qom to continue his studies at the seminary, where he stayed at the school of Imam Tzadik and studied with a group of Lebanese scholars.

Damoush lived at the college in Qom for about fourteen years, from 1979 to the end of 1993, during which time he was busy acquiring knowledge, teaching Shiite Islam, writing, and conducting da’wah (call to Islam) tours in Iran, Lebanon, and Africa. Following this event, Damoush was appointed as the second head of Hezbollah's Executive Council.

Involvement in the Israel conflict Currently, Damoush is involved in the ongoing conflict between Lebanon and Israel, emphasising that Israel threats are ineffective against Lebanon's strong resistance. He has stated that adversaries aim to weaken Hezbollah's political influence and mobilize opposition against it. He also warned that retaliatory actions by the Lebanese resistance in response to Israeli aggression and assassinations of resistance figures would exceed Israel's expectations.