Hezbollah criticizes Israel’s attack on Iran but says it will not join the fight

Hezbollah, along with Hamas in Gaza and the Houthis in Yemen, are proxies of Iran and are funded and supported by the Islamic Republic.

By Vered Weiss, World Israel News

A Hezbollah official told Reuters that although the Lebanon-based terror group condemned Israel’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, it did not plan a retaliatory strike against Israel.

“Hezbollah will not initiate its own attack on Israel in retaliation for Israel’s strikes,” the official said.

However, the terrorist official condemned the operation as “brutal Israeli aggression” and said Israel’s preemptive strike “threatened to ignite the entire region.”

The official also said Israel understood only the language of “killing, fire, and destruction.”

Hezbollah, along with Hamas in Gaza and the Houthis in Yemen, are proxies of Iran and are funded and supported by the Islamic Republic.

Over 200 Israeli Air Force jets launched a coordinated, preemptive strike early Friday, targeting dozens of locations in Iran—including military installations and nuclear facilities—as part of a precise and comprehensive offensive against Iran’s nuclear program.

Iranian state television confirmed that among those killed was Hossein Salami, commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and Iranian Chief of Staff Mohammad Bagheri, along with several other senior military figures.

Iranian nuclear scientists Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani and Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi were also reported dead following strikes on facilities linked to Tehran’s nuclear program.

In retaliation, Iran launched 100 UAVs towards Israel, all of which were intercepted by Israel’s military.

Regarding the strike, an unnamed Israeli defense official told Army Radio, “The initial wave of attacks targeted air defense systems, surface-to-surface missile sites and involved a broad, precisely timed operation aimed at eliminating high-ranking Iranian officials. Simultaneous strikes hit both the Iranian General Staff and key nuclear scientists across the country.

He added: “If this opening strike was successful, then what took us 10 days to do to senior Hezbollah figures—we accomplished against Iran in just 10 minutes.”

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told IRNA state-run media on Friday, “Israel opened its evil and bloody hand and committed a crime against our beloved country, revealing its malicious nature more than ever by striking residential areas.”

“With this crime, the Zionist regime has set itself up for a bitter and painful fate, and it will receive it,” Khamenei said.