Hezbollah: Iranian missile barrage affirmed ‘new balance of deterrence’
In Nakba Day remarks, Lebanese group’s deputy leader calls US embassy relocation to Jerusalem ‘worthless’
The Hezbollah terror organization said Monday that an Iranian missile barrage last week toward the Golan Heights affirmed “the balance of deterrence” between Israel and its regional enemies.
The group’s deputy leader, Sheikh Naim Kassem, also said the US decision to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem is a unilateral step “that Palestinians will not accept and therefore it is worthless.”
Kassem made his comments in a speech in Beirut marking the 70th anniversary of Israel’s founding, in what the Palestinians refer to as the Nakba, or “catastrophe.” His comments came hours ahead of the dedication of the new embassy building in Jerusalem.
Kassem said, “God willing, the Nakba that happened 70 years ago will be a motive for change and liberation.”
Iran fired 20 missiles toward Israel just after midnight on Thursday morning, the military said. Four of the missiles were knocked down by the Iron Dome air defense system and the rest failed to reach Israeli territory, according to the IDF.
In response, Israeli F-15 and F-16 fighter jets bombed over 50 Iranian targets throughout Syria as the Israel air force carried out an extensive campaign, dubbed “Operation House of Cards,” to try to destroy Iran’s military presence in the country, the army said.
Among the targets were a weapons depot in the international airport in Damascus, as well as positions, observation posts, and arms placed in the buffer zone on the Israel-Syria border.
The overnight exchange was the largest-ever direct clash between the Iranian forces and the IDF, and appeared to be the largest exchange involving Israel in Syria since the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
At least 23 fighters were killed, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, including five Syrian regime troops and 18 other allied forces.
Iran, along with Hezbollah and Russia, is helping the Syrian regime suppress a bloody insurgency, now in its eighth year.
Tehran has repeatedly vowed revenge after the T-4 army base in Syria was struck in an air raid by Israel on April 9, killing at least seven members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, including a senior officer responsible for the group’s drone program.
Israel has committed to preventing Iran from establishing forward bases in Syria, fearing they could be used to launch strikes against the Jewish state, and also to prevent advanced weapons from reaching Iran’s Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah. A number of deadly airstrikes against Syrian targets that reportedly destroyed Iranian military assets have been attributed to Israel.
The Times of Israel Community.