Lebanon’s Hezbollah leader Sheikh Naim Qassem delivers a speech from an unknown location, Nov. 20, 2024, in this still image from video. Photo: REUTERS TV/Al Manar TV via REUTERS.

The Iran-backed terrorist organization Hezbollah announced it will not carry out a retaliatory strike against the Jewish state in support of Tehran, following a warning from the Lebanese government not to drag the country into a wider confrontation.

“Hezbollah will not initiate its own attack on Israel in retaliation for Israel’s strikes,” the Lebanon-based Islamist group told Reuters.

Israel launched a broad preemptive attack on Iran overnight on Friday, targeting military installations and nuclear sites across the country in what officials described as an effort to neutralize an imminent nuclear threat as nuclear negotiations between the United States and Tehran appear on the brink of collapse.

In an unexpected turn, the choice of Hezbollah, which for decades has been Iran’s chief proxy force in the Middle East, to hold back from retaliating against Israeli strikes on the Islamic regime reveals just how weakened the group is following last year’s Israeli operations in Lebanon — despite its threat of retaliation once serving as a key deterrent against attacks on Iranian nuclear sites.

Last fall, Israel decimated much of Hezbollah’s leadership and military capabilities with an air and ground offensive, which ended with a ceasefire that concluded a year of fighting between the Jewish state and the terrorist group.

In a statement released on Friday, Hezbollah condemned the Israeli attack on Iran, describing it as a dangerous escalation by “an enemy that understands only the language of killing, fire, and destruction.”

The Lebanese group also accused Washington of directly facilitating the attack and called on regional governments to show solidarity with the Iranian people.

“This aggression would not have taken place without direct US approval, coordination, and cover,” a Hezbollah official said in a statement, claiming the strikes are part of a broader effort to advance US and Israeli “hegemony.”

“Washington is now attempting to distance itself to avoid consequences,” the statement read. “If this aggression is not met with rejection, condemnation, and support for Iran and its people, this criminal entity will grow more aggressive and tyrannical.”

Iranian state television confirmed that the attack killed Hossein Salami, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and Chief of Staff Mohammad Bagheri, along with several other high-ranking military officials.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) also said that the entire top command of Iran’s air force was killed, as well as the IRGC commander responsible for overseeing last year’s drone and missile attacks against Israeli territory.

In a separate statement, Hezbollah chief Sheikh Naim Qassem warned that Israel’s massive attack on Iran “will have major repercussions on the region’s stability, seeing as it will not pass without a response and punishment.”

“We in Hezbollah and our Islamic resistance and mujahid people are holding onto our approach and resistance, and we support the Islamic Republic of Iran in its rights and stance, and in any steps and measures it takes to defend itself and choices,” Qassem said.

According to the Saudi news outlet Al-Arabiya, Lebanon’s government informed the Iranian terrorist proxy that it would not tolerate its involvement in Tehran’s response against Israel, warning it would bear responsibility for dragging the country into war.

“The time when the organization bypassed the state in deciding to go to war is over,” the terrorist group was told, according to the report. “The decision of war and peace is exclusively in the hands of the Lebanese state.”

Before Israel’s military operations against Hezbollah last year, the terrorist group enjoyed major political and military influence across Lebanon.