Lebanese TV Exposes Hezbollah’s Use of Scout Movements to Cultivate Child Soldiers
MEMRI identified the footage, which shows how the Iranian-backed militia trains youth for "martyrdom" through the Imam al-Mahdi Scouts, giving fallen children "heroes funerals" to inspire others.
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Lebanese television network Murr Television (MTV) aired a broadcast on May 15, documenting how Hezbollah systematically uses its youth scout movements to groom an entire generation of children prepared to die as martyrs.
The report revealed that Hezbollah gives child fighters elaborate “heroes funerals” and publicly glorifies them before their peers to encourage other children to follow the same path. According to the MTV broadcast, Hezbollah operates openly in full view of Lebanese authorities, and the organization believes every drop of blood shed by child soldiers brings victory closer.
An 80,000-Member Pipeline for Militancy
Iran established the Imam al-Mahdi Scouts in Lebanon in 1985 with direct Revolutionary Guard involvement. It presents itself as a leisure and educational movement under the slogan “Help build a better world.” The organization derives its name from Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Mahdi, considered by Twelver Shia Islam to be the final of twelve Imams and has evolved into what Lebanese political analyst Talal Atrissi described to The New York Times in 2008 as “an integrated system from elementary school to university” designed to “create a generation that holds strong religious beliefs and is close to Hezbollah.”
The pro-terror youth movement now operates with approximately 80,000 active members including officials, making it one of the largest militant youth movements in the region and is comprised of children ages 8 through 16. The youth movement takes the children to meet terrorist operatives, visit weapons repositories, and join combat workshops euphemistically called “literacy” that train them in light weapons use. According to former Imam al-Mahdi Scouts director Bilal Naim, the overwhelming majority of members join “jihadi activity” after age 16, transitioning directly into Hezbollah’s military wing.
From Summer Camps to Combat Training
The scouts operate more than 500 local branches organized into “tribes” across Shiite population centers. Their summer camps annually host over 40,000 children who receive instruction in Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s ideology alongside physical training. Dr. Ali Khalife, author of the book Children of Hezbollah, documented through interviews with former members that the program includes combat courses and weapons training at very young ages. Materials seized during the 2006 Lebanon War showed scouts wearing flak jackets, carrying rifles, and wearing headbands reading “O Jerusalem, I am coming.”
Massive Public Display of Youth Mobilization
In October 2025, Hezbollah held what it called “the largest scouting event in the world” at Beirut’s Camille Chamoun Stadium. The gathering drew an estimated 75,000 Mahdi Scouts who renewed their oath of loyalty to fallen Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem addressed the assembled children as “the army of Imam Al Mahdi” being educated “in the heart of the conflict” to lead jihad against enemies. The event featured a 5,000 square-meter portrait of Nasrallah and participants carrying Iranian flags alongside pictures of fallen Hezbollah leaders.
A Weapon Planted in Minds
Dr. Khalife argues the scout system represents something more insidious than simple military recruitment. Through interviews with former members and analysis of curricula at 22 Hezbollah-operated schools serving 47,000 students, he documents a comprehensive system cultivating political loyalty to Iran’s Supreme Leader rather than the Lebanese state. “The weapon in a child’s hand is less dangerous than the weapon in a child’s mind,” Khalife said. “A rifle can be confiscated. An ideology planted in generations is much harder to disarm.”