Iran Doesn’t Want Hezbollah Fighting Israel
Opening a second front against the Israel Defense Forces would just create two more for Tehran to deal with.
What’s holding up Hezbollah? From the moment Israel began to retaliate against Hamas for the Oct. 7 terrorist attack, the world has been expecting the Lebanese militia to join the war, opening a second front in Israel’s north. That prospect has repeatedly been raised by Iran, which counts Hamas and Hezbollah as vital nodes in its network of proxy militias across the Middle East.
But the Lebanese group has until now restricted itself mainly to firing rockets into Israel, along with some anti-tank and small-arms fire. Even more remarkably, its fire-breathing leader, Hassan Nasrallah, has refrained from his usual rhetorical broadsides against “the Zionist entity.” He is expected to give his first public speech since the Hamas attack this Friday, nearly a month after Israel began raining bombs on Gaza.