Iranian president says Hezbollah ‘cannot stand alone’ against Israel
In interview ahead of his UN General Assembly speech, Masoud Pezeshkian calls on international community not to allow Lebanon to ‘become another Gaza’
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Tuesday that his country’s proxy Hezbollah “cannot stand alone” against Israel, as the terror group fired rockets at northern Israel towns and the IDF renewed airstrikes against targets in Lebanon.
“Hezbollah cannot stand alone against a country that is being defended and supported and supplied by Western countries, by European countries and the United States,” Pezeshkian said in an interview with CNN translated from Persian to English.
He called on the international community to “not allow Lebanon to become another Gaza,” in response to a question on whether Iran would use its influence with Hezbollah to urge restraint.
The IDF said Tuesday that it had struck more than 1,600 Hezbollah sites over the previous day — mostly weapons stored within homes — marking its heaviest airstrikes against the terror group in its history.
The Lebanon health ministry said Tuesday that nearly 600 people, including 35 children, were killed in the strikes across Lebanon. The figures do not distinguish between combatants and civilians.
Hezbollah has fired hundreds of rockets deep into northern Israel over the past several days, wounding several. Fighting between Israel and the Lebanese terror group has been ongoing for the past 11 months — since Hezbollah started launching missiles at Israel on October 8, one day after the Hamas massacre in southern Israel — with violence spiking over the past few days since Israeli began a sustained offensive against Hezbollah’s missile capabilities.
Iran called on the UN Security Council to “take immediate action” against the “insane” Israeli escalation.
“Iran will NOT remain indifferent,” Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in a post on X late Monday. “We stand with the people of Lebanon and Palestine.”
The Israeli strikes came less than a week after coordinated sabotage attacks, widely attributed to the Jewish state, targeted Hezbollah’s communication devices, killing 39 people and wounding almost 3,000 across Lebanon.
Iranian media blamed Israel for the apparent slide toward full-fledged war.
“The Zionist regime has pressed the all-out war button,” said the ultraconservative Javan newspaper, while its rival Kayhan asked: “Has the big war begun?”
Government daily Iran warned “the region is on the verge of a massive explosion.” Reformist newspaper Etemad said “peace in Lebanon is hanging by a thread.”
Pezeshkian, who is in New York for the annual UN General Assembly, accused Israel of warmongering.
“We know better than anyone that if a larger war erupts in the Middle East, it will benefit no one globally,” Pezeshkian told journalists at a roundtable. “It is Israel that seeks to create this wider conflict.”
He claimed Iran had “never started a war in the last 100 years” and was “not looking to cause insecurity.”
But he insisted that Iran “will never allow a country to force us into something and threaten our security and territorial integrity.”
In April, Iran launched its first ever direct attack on Israel, firing more than 300 missiles and drones at the country, most of which were downed by air defenses outside of Israeli airspace.
Iran also provides financial and military backing to Hezbollah, the Houthis, Hamas and a number of other terror groups in Iraq and Syria that have been attacking Israel on a regular basis since the start of the war in Gaza.
