The Lebanon-based, Tehran-backed Hezbollah terrorist organization on Saturday condemned the Israeli-U.S. military operation against Iran, while stopping short of vowing to join in attacking the Jewish state.
“We call on countries and people of the region to stand strong in the face of these hostile designs,” the Shi’ite group stated, warning that their “dire consequences will affect everyone without exception if left unchecked.
“We’re certain that the American-Israeli enemy will be dealt a major blow, and reap nothing but failure from its criminal, tyrannical aggression,” Hezbollah said.
The Israel Defense Forces launched a preemptive strike against the Islamic Republic on Saturday morning to neutralize the threat it poses to the Jewish state, Defense Minister Israel Katz announced.
Iran subsequently fired an estimated 35 ballistic missiles at Israel, with sirens continuing to blare across the country. Some of the missiles were intercepted, while others struck open areas.
President Donald Trump said in a video posted to Truth Social that the U.S. military had also begun “major combat operations” in Iran.
“Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime, a vicious group of very hard, terrible people. Its menacing activities directly endanger the United States, our troops, our bases overseas and our allies throughout the world,” he said.
Two senior Lebanese officials told Reuters on Tuesday that Jerusalem warned Lebanon via intermediaries that it could carry out heavy airstrikes on its territory, including against civilian infrastructure such as Beirut-Rafic Hariri International Airport, if Hezbollah enters the war.
Lebanon’s government has pledged to disarm Hezbollah under a U.S.-brokered ceasefire deal in November 2024 that ended the fighting that began when the terrorist group joined Hamas’s war against Israel on Oct. 8, 2023.
Hezbollah has recently stepped up military and security meetings as it braces for another battle against the Jewish state, according to a report by the Saudi-owned Al Arabiya network.
Unnamed sources close to the Lebanese terrorist group told the Saudi network this week that Hezbollah is effectively being run by officers from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
In a separate statement on Saturday, the Gaza-based Hamas terrorist group said it “strongly” condemned “the Zionist-American aggression against Iran and against any Arab or Islamic country.”
Hamas, which has also received Iranian support and funding called on “the Arab and Islamic nation to unite in order to thwart this aggression.”
It claimed the military operation “aims to reshape the region according to the occupation’s [Israel’s] aspirations to establish ‘Greater Israel’ at the expense of Arab and Islamic lands.”
