Ali Damoush
Sheikh Ali Damoush is a Lebanese Shia cleric and current head of Hezbollah's Executive Council. He took over the position after the previous head Hashem Safi al-Din, was assassinated on October 4, 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.
Various reports indicate the appointment of Damoush as the new head of Hezbollah's Executive Council, one stating "It was clear, noting that was deputy head of Hezbollah's Executive Council in 1998."
Early life
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 tours in Iran, Lebanon, and Africa.
Career
At the beginning of 1994, Damoush returned to Lebanon permanently and joined the Islamic Sharia Institute, where he was part of its administrative and scientific body until 1997. When he returned to Lebanon in 1994, he also joined Hezbollah.In Hezbollah, Damoush held several positions, such as a judge in Hezbollah’s sharia courts from 1994 to 1998. He then joined the Executive Council in 1998 and oversaw the Culture Unit until 2001. He was then in charge of the External Relations Unit.
Damoush served as the deputy to Hashem Safi al-Din, the previous head of the Executive Council, until his death on October 4, 2024 by an assassination attack. He was then appointed as the new head of Hezbollah's Executive Council after the incident, being the second head of the Executive Council.
Right now, Damoush is currently working on a conflict between Lebanon and Israel. He maintained that the Israeli regime does not understand the language of diplomacy.
Damoush said Israeli threats against Lebanon are worthless in the face of the “stronger than ever” resistance in the Arab country.