Iran welcomes Lebanese Hezbollah’s major attack on Israeli positions

Iran on Monday, August 26, welcomed the large-scale attack carried out by Lebanese Hezbollah against Israeli positions on Sunday. Following this operation, “strategic balances have undergone fundamental changes to the detriment” of Israel, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said on X. The Israeli military has “lost its offensive and deterrent power” and must now “defend against strategic strikes”he added.

The Iranian-backed Lebanese Islamist movement Hezbollah announced on Sunday that it had launched hundreds of drones and rockets at Israel, nearly a month after one of its military leaders, Fouad Shokr, was killed in an Israeli strike in Beirut, Lebanon. The Israeli army did not report any casualties in the Hezbollah strikes, citing only “minor damage”including fires. It claimed to have foiled a large-scale attack by the Shiite group funded and armed by Tehran, carrying out several strikes in Lebanon.

Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf also praised Hezbollah’s operation on Sunday, saying it “had successfully targeted sensitive military and intelligence installations” in Israel. Since the October 7 attacks in Israel and the start of the war between the Jewish state and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Hezbollah and the Israeli army have been exchanging fire almost daily on the Israeli-Lebanese border. Tensions have worsened in recent weeks, fueling fears of a regional conflagration.