Hezbollah condemned Israel’s strikes on Iran on Friday in a statement that said it had “crossed all red lines,” though the terrorist organization featured no threat or indication that it intended to take military action.
Israel killed several Iranian generals in a series of strikes involving 200 fighter jets and bombers, some of which also targeted Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility, among other targets.
The statement by Hezbollah, which in November agreed to limited terms of a ceasefire with Israel following the slaying of its upper central command, contrasted sharply with the group’s rhetoric toward Israel from before the ceasefire.
In August, then Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah vowed a “strong” response from Hezbollah and the entire Iran-led Axis of Resistance alliance following an attack that killed a senior Hamas official in Iran.
“Our response is coming, God willing, alone or (…) with the entire ‘Axis’,” said Nasrallah, adding that the response will be “strong and effective.” Hezbollah “will respond, Iran will respond, Yemen will respond,” Nasrallah said in a televised speech.
Israel killed Nasrallah in September along with several other top Hezbollah commanders. Under the ceasefire agreement that Hezbollah accepted two months later, it agreed to pull its forces out of southern Lebanon and not to deploy them south of the Litani River.
In addition to the slaying of Hezbollah’s top command, Israel incapacitated many of its mid-level operatives when Mossad detonated booby-trapped pagers that the spy agency had sold Hezbollah through a series of front companies. The Israel Air Force and other units took out much of Hezbollah’s ballistic capabilities in the days after Nasrallah’s assassination.
Hezbollah’s deployment along the border with Israel and its threat of paralysing Israel’s economy with its ballistic arsenal were widely seen as a deterrent against an Israeli move on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Conversely, Iran’s own ballistic capabilities were deemed a deterrent against an Israeli move on Hezbollah.
In October, Israel carried out a precision strike in Iran against its advanced air defence systems. That attack, carried out in retaliation for Iranian drone and rocket attacks on Israel in solidarity with Hamas and Hezbollah, reportedly left Iran exposed to wider Israeli strikes.
Those hostilities were part of an escalation that began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorists invaded Israel, murdering 1,200 people and abducting another 251 into Gaza.
In its statement on Friday, Hezbollah wrote that it “strongly condemns the brutal Israeli aggression targeting the Islamic Republic of Iran, which constitutes a dangerous escalation in the Zionist regime’s evasion of all controls and rules, under full American cover and sponsorship.”
The strikes “will not weaken Iran but increase its determination to defend its sovereignty and security,” read the statement.
Israel’s actions undermine “all the efforts made over the past period to maintain stability and security in the region,” creating “grave risks whose repercussions could lead to undesirable consequences,” the text said.
Israel’s actions should be met with “rejection, condemnation and support for Iran and its people,” the statement said.
Stopping short of promising any action by Hezbollah, it said that Israel “will discover that the great Iranian people will become more committed to their legitimate natural rights and will defend their freedom, dignity, and independence with strength.”