File image.
Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem said on January 26 that any attack on Iran would also target Lebanon, and warned that any new war on its backer would ignite the region.
The United States has been threatening the Islamic Republic since the start of the month over a wave of violent protests, and in recent days it reinforced its forces in the Middle East with an aircraft carrier in addition to many other military assets.
“Faced with aggression that does not distinguish between us… we are targeted by any potential aggression and determined to defend ourselves,” Qassem said in a televised address to supporters at a solidarity rally for the Iranian regime.
“We will choose at that time how to act… but we are not neutral,” he added, warning that “a war on Iran this time will ignite the region.”
Qassem also revealed mediators had told the group the U.S. and Israel were considering hitting Hezbollah in case there was an attack on Iran.
The remarks came just a day after a wave of intense Israeli strikes that hit targets of Hezbollah in several parts of Lebanon.
According to the Israeli military, one of the strikes targeted a group of Hezbollah operatives at a weapon manufacturing site in southern Lebanon, killing one, whom it named as Jawad Basma. In a separate strike in the country’s eastern Beqaa Valley, the military said it struck other military infrastructure of the group.
Another strike killed a Hezbollah artillery commander, Muhammad al-Husseini, who also worked as a school teacher, the Israeli military said.
Earlier this month, the Lebanese military announced that the entire area in southern Lebanon to the south of the Litani River was disarmed according to a government plan approved last year in line with the ceasefire agreement brokered by the United States in November of 2024.
While both Lebanon and Hezbollah have shown commitment to the ceasefire agreement, Israel refuses to halt its strikes, or even to withdraw its troops from several posts inside southern Lebanon.
An large-scale Israeli military operation against Hezbollah, even one involving a ground invasion, is as likely as an attack by the U.S. on Iran, if not more.
Just last week, U.S. President Donald Trump openly suggested that something should be done about Hezbollah, hitting at a military operation.
“Hezbollah in Lebanon, we have to do something about that,” Trump said in remarks at the Davos economic forum on January 22
“But these are, I call them remnants. They’re small remnants compared to what it was before,” he added, referring to Hezbollah.
Taking this into account, Qassem’s warning was not an attempt to drag Lebanon into some war for Iran, but rather an attempt to deter Israel in the hope of avoiding a war. Neither Iran nor Hezbollah will be firing the first shot, but it is clear that both will hit back.
Hezbollah is no longer as capable of striking Israel as before. However, the group could still inflict some serious losses on the Israeli military in a ground battle.
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