Top Hezbollah commanders killed in Beirut air strike, Israel says

Iranian authorities are gradually responding to two separate attacks on Tuesday and Wednesday, allegedly carried out by Israel. They have condemned the incidents as acts of terrorism, vowed retaliation through the "Resistance Front," and called for enhanced security measures to prevent similar attacks against Islamic government targets in Iran.

President Masoud Pezeshkian posted a message of condolence to the Lebanese people Thursday on X for the “treacherous [act of] mass terrorism”.

The explosions in Lebanon that have so far claimed over two dozen lives and injured thousands are particularly alarming to the Islamic Republic whose nuclear facilities, scientists, and even a very high-profile foreign guest, Ismail Haniyeh, have been targeted by Israel in very complex operations over the years.

Reza Taghipour, a former communications minister, told the IRGC-linked Javan newspaper Thursday that the minimum takeaway from the past two days’ attacks in Lebanon for Iran is to use homegrown technologies or carry out standard physical, software, and electromagnetic tests to ensure cyber security if foreign-made devices have to be used.  

Mohammad Marandi, an advisor to the Iranian nuclear negotiations team in Vienna during Ebrahim Raisi’s presidency, has in several tweets since Tuesday warned Iranians about purchasing “Western, Taiwanese, Korean, or Japanese electronic devices, batteries, or other hi-tech products.”

“As we see in Lebanon, they can be weaponized against you and your loved ones,” he alleged in one of his posts. “The West is complicit. Western companies are untrustworthy, and their supply chains are suspect,” he tweeted Wednesday and warned about devices “produced in NATO or NATO affiliated regimes” in another post on the same day.

Iranian media also reported in the past two days that some Telegram channels that report military and security news allegedly affiliated to the Revolutionary Guards, including a channel called Sepah-e 27 Mohammad Rasoulolah, have claimed that according to a Hezbollah official, the Lebanese group consulted with Iranian authorities when it decided to ban the use of mobile phones.

The said channel has alleged that Irancell, one of Iran's major mobile companies, Kambiz Mehdizadeh, former President Hassan Rouhani’s son-in-law, as well as Pezeshkian’s Vice-President, Mohammad-Reza Aref were recently involved in procuring pagers for the Hezbollah. This allegation, however, contradicts the timeline for the procurement of the pagers that are said to have been obtained several months ago, while Aref came to the political scene only in July.

The IRGC has so far neither confirmed nor rejected the affiliation of the said Telegram channel or commented on its allegations. Irancell, however, strongly rejected the reports of its involvement in the procurement of pagers for Hezbollah in a statement Wednesday.

After a speech on Thursday by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, during which Israeli fighter jets repeatedly broke the sound barrier over Beirut and bombed southern Lebanon, Iranian media published a message from Revolutionary Guards commander General Hossein Salami to Nasrallah.

Salami called the explosion of communication devices in Lebanon a “terrorist crime” and a sign of “desperation” and vowed a “crushing response by the Resistance Front” and “Israel’s total annihilation” soon.

These messages did not refer to the serious eye injuries of the Iranian envoy to Beirut, Mojtaba Amani, sustained when his pager exploded in the first round of attacks on Tuesday.

Amani was transferred to Tehran by the Iranian Red Crescent Wednesday with a group of Lebanese wounded in the attacks and visited by Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi Thursday.

“The Iranian envoy in Lebanon is constantly in contact with Hezbollah. This is not new at all. All our ambassadors in Lebanon were in contact with Hezbollah regarding various matters so it is not strange,” foreign policy analyst Hassan Beheshtipour told Rouydad24 news website Thursday.

“In my opinion, instead of reciprocating [now], we should first find out the details and block the infiltration channels. One must be innovative when it comes to reaction, that is, we must be innovative in the same way that Israel has been. The easiest thing is not to retaliate quickly," he added.

The attacks widely blamed on their mutual foe ratchet up already flaring tensions across the Israeli-Lebanese border but appeared to stop short of heralding an imminent regional war.

"There is no doubt that we have been exposed to a major and unprecedented blow on the security and humanitarian levels," Nasrallah told supporters via video link from an undisclosed location.

"It can be called a declaration of war", Nasrallah added, vowing a "severe reckoning and just punishment".

Israel has not yet commented on any role in the back-to-back waves of attacks which hit pagers and walkie-talkies.

In the day before nationwide blasts hit pagers carried by Hezbollah members, Israel on Monday upgraded the aims of its nearly one-year-old war against the group's Palestinian allies Hamas to include returning the 60,000 citizens who have been evacuated from their homes due to Hezbollah fire.

'Complete destruction'

The chief of the Iran's transnational paramilitary organisation the IRGC also predicted on Thursday that the informal alliance of armed Islamist militias Iran leads throughout the region would punish the Jewish state.

"Soon we will witness the complete destruction of this cruel and criminal regime with the crushing response of the resistance front," Hossein Salami told Nasrallah on Thursday, Iranian state media reported.

Salami also visited Iran's ambassador to Lebanon in a Tehran hospital on Thursday where the envoy was taken after being stricken by the original blasts, in injuries the New York Times quoted IRGC sources as saying left him blind in one eye.

No retaliation yet

Since the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on July 31 - an attack Iranian officials attribute to Israel - Tehran has pledged retaliation but has yet to land any blow.

Iran launched a large-scale missile and drone strike on Israel in April following a deadly Israeli attack on Iran's consular compound in Damascus.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday warned against escalation in the Middle East, after the US said it conveyed to Iran through back channels that it had no foreknowledge or hand in the attacks.

“We don’t want to see any escalatory actions by any party," Blinken said in remarks on a visit to Paris.

Hezbollah has long been Iran’s strongest ally in Lebanon and a central figure in its broader regional strategy.

The group was founded in the 1980s with direct Iranian assistance via the IRGC to fight Israeli forces in southern Lebanon. Since then, Hezbollah has grown into both a political force in Lebanon and a powerful militia that frequently engages in conflict with Israel.

The plot escalated following the assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July, according to Shin Bet.

The Iranian scheme also included plans to target former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and other senior Israeli defense figures, although the details have not been confirmed.

The operation sought to exploit an Israeli businessman with extensive ties to both Turkey and Iran, leveraging his financial networks to facilitate the assassination attempts within Israel. The businessman was indicted on Thursday.

In April, Turkish citizens Andrei Farouk Aslan and Guneid Aslan contacted an Israeli businessman, involving him in financial transactions and inviting him to a meeting in the Turkish city of Samandag, according to the Jerusalem Post.

At the meeting, he was asked to travel to Iran where he met with a wealthy Iranian named Wadi and an Iranian security official named Haj. The Jewish businessman initially requested $1 million before agreeing to participate.

In August, during a second smuggled trip to Iran, he received €5,000 and was tasked with logistical and weapons-related activities for a plot, including converting a Mossad agent into a double agent and assisting in assassination plans against Israeli leaders.

He was also asked to film Israeli sites for intelligence purposes and deliver threats to Israelis working for Iran who weren't following orders.

Additionally, the businessman was approached about recruiting Russians and Americans to assassinate Iranian dissidents living in Europe and the US.

Last year, Mossad intelligence chief, David Barnea, revealed Israel had foiled multiple plots against Jewish or Israeli targets around the world but this is the highest level assassination attempt on Israeli soil.

It comes as Israel and Iran continue their shadow war, Iran's proxies surrounding the Jewish state with attacks from Yemen, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq amid the war in Gaza against Iran-backed Hamas.

For over a decade, Iran has been recruiting Israelis to carry out plots inside Israel. Most recently, in July, three Israelis were arrested for supporting a plot paid for by Iran.

"The center of gravity is moving from Gaza to the north through the diversion of resources and forces. We are opening a new phase in the war," Gallant said.

The remarks came as explosions targeting communication devices owned by Hezbollah fighters rocked Lebanon for a second day, killing nearly thirty people in total and injuring over 3,000 including Tehran's ambassador to Beirut Mojtaba Amini.

Israel has not claimed responsibility for the attacks but Hezbollah blames the Jewish state and has vowed revenge.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that Israel will ensure that tens of thousands of residents evacuated from northern border areas will be able to go back home.

"I have said it before; we will return the citizens of the north to their homes safely and that's exactly what we are going to do," he said in a brief video statement, giving no further details.

Tens of thousands of Lebanese citizens have also fled their homes since the start of cross-border combat since Hezbollah began trading fire with Israeli forces following the attack of their Palestinian allies Hamas on Israel on October 7.

Israel emphasized securing its frontier with Lebanon as a key war goal and equipped border forces with thousands of advanced new rifles on Monday, a day before an apparent Israeli attack detonated pagers carried by Hezbollah members across Lebanon.

"We still have many capabilities that we have not yet activated," Israeli army chief General Herzi Halevi told top commanders on a visit to Israel's north on Wednesday

"The rule is that every time we work on a certain stage, the next two stages are already ready to advance. At each stage, the price for Hezbollah must be higher."

One of the senior officials of Hezbollah described this incident as the largest security infiltration by Israel since the establishment of Hezbollah. This operation once again demonstrates Israel's technological, intelligence, and operational superiority over the Islamic Republic and its proxy groups.

In this operation, Israel showcased its technological advantage by infiltrating Hezbollah's communication systems, and this also highlighted Israel's superiority in intelligence operations.

Furthermore, Israel was able to convert this technological and intelligence advantage into operational superiority, targeting several thousand Hezbollah members in a complex operation.

The psychological impact of this operation, which represented a form of humiliation for Hezbollah, is far more significant than its operational aspect. This operation bolstered the confidence of Israeli intelligence agencies, which had been called into question following Hamas's attack on October 7.

On the other hand, it damaged the morale of Hezbollah forces, showing that their intelligence and security structures are vulnerable and permeable.

In recent months, Israel demonstrated its technological, intelligence, and operational superiority by targeting Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of Hamas, in Tehran. That operation was carried out under highly sensitive security conditions during one of the most protected events, namely the inauguration of a new president in Iran on July 31.

A similar pattern was observed in the assassination of Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a senior IRGC commander in Syria and Lebanon, where an Israeli F-35 aircraft precisely targeted Zahedi's residence with a missile fired from the Golan Heights, killing him along with several other IRGC commanders in April.

Before this, Israel had assassinated Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in November 2020, who was responsible for the Islamic Republic's military nuclear program, reportedly using a remote-controlled machine gun.

In contrast, the Islamic Republic and its proxy groups largely rely on mass missile and drone attacks against Israel. Recent examples include Iran's failed April 13 attack on Israel, Hezbollah's rocket and drone strikes on northern Israel in recent months, and recent missile attacks by Iran-backed Yemeni Houthis, which generally lack precision.

In fact, the Islamic Republic and its proxy groups have so far been unable to directly access and assassinate Israeli commanders and officials.

In the latest case, Israel announced that it had thwarted Hezbollah's attempt to assassinate Avi Kohavi, the former head of the Israeli army.

Another important point regarding the recent Israeli operation and the explosion of Hezbollah members' pagers is that Mojtaba Amani, the Iranian ambassador in Beirut, was also among the injured in this incident. This highlights the close relations between Hezbollah and the Islamic Republic's ambassador, which have existed since Hezbollah's founding and are not particularly hidden.

Two other significant aspects of this Israeli operation, especially concerning the injury of the Iranian ambassador, are noteworthy.

First, it reflects Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli intelligence's determination to confront Hezbollah and the Islamic Republic. Second, the Islamic Republic is under increased pressure from its supporters to respond to Israel following the injury of its ambassador, especially since it has yet to respond to Haniyeh's assassination in Tehran.

In the two months since Haniyeh's killing, IRGC commanders have continuously spoken of a hard revenge, but their supporters so far have only heard promises.

Now that the Iranian ambassador in Beirut has also been injured, pressure on the IRGC has intensified. Israel continues its attacks, while IRGC commanders have limited themselves to ineffective speeches.

Finally, this Israeli operation against Hezbollah members complicates the situation for the Biden administration.

The Biden government is consistently trying to prevent an all-out war between Hezbollah and Israel and does not want to witness the outbreak of such a war just 50 days before the U.S. elections, potentially involving the US in this conflict.

However, Netanyahu seems unconcerned about Biden's considerations and continues to advance his actions against the Islamic Republic and Hezbollah. In this context, the US State Department quickly responded, stating it was unaware of this operation and urged the Islamic Republic to avoid escalating tensions in the region.