Israel Warns Hezbollah After Terror Group Defies Lebanon’s Calls to Stay Out of Iran War

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz on Friday warned the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah against joining Iran’s war on the Jewish state, after the Iranian proxy threatened to take action in support of Tehran’s campaign — defying the Lebanese government’s demands to keep the country out of the conflict.

“The Hezbollah Secretary-General [Sheikh Naim Qassem] has not learned the lessons of his predecessors and is threatening to act against Israel at the direction of the Iranian dictator,” Katz wrote in a post on X, referring to former leaders of the terrorist group who were killed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) during last year’s war.

“I advise the Lebanese proxy to be cautious and understand that Israel has lost patience with terrorists who threaten it. If there is terrorism — there will be no Hezbollah,” the Israeli defense chief wrote in a Hebrew post.

מזכ”ל החיזבאללה לא לומד לקח מקודמיו ומאיים לפעול נגד ישראל בהתאם להוראת הדיקטטור האיראני.

אני מציע לפרוקסי הלבנוני להיזהר ולהבין שישראל איבדה את הסבלנות כלפי טרוריסטים שמאיימים עליה.

אם יהיה טרור – לא יהיה חיזבאללה.

— ישראל כ”ץ Israel Katz (@Israel_katz) June 20, 2025

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 Iran-backed terror group.

On Thursday, Qassem reaffirmed Hezbollah’s support for the Islamist regime in Iran in its war against Israel, following a week in which Iran suffered heavy losses from Israeli strikes. He also renewed accusations that the United States is complicit in facilitating the Israeli offensive.

Hezbollah is “not neutral, and therefore we express our position alongside Iran, its leadership and its people, and we will act as we see fit in confronting this brutal Israeli-American aggression,” the terror group’s leader said in a statement on Telegram.

“Tyrannical America and criminal Israel will not be able to subjugate the Iranian people and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,” Qassem continued. Hezbollah has a duty “to stand by Iran and provide it with all forms of support that contribute to putting an end to this tyranny and oppression.”

Qassem’s latest remarks came just a week after the Iran-backed terror group announced it would refrain from launching retaliatory strikes against Israel in support of Tehran, following a warning from the Lebanese government not to drag the country into a broader conflict.

According to the Saudi news outlet Al-Arabiya, Lebanese authorities 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.”

Last week, Israel launched a broad preemptive attack on Iran — dubbed Operation Rising Lion — targeting military installations and nuclear sites across the country in what officials described as an effort to neutralize an imminent nuclear threat.

The ongoing Israeli strikes killed several of Iran’s top military commanders and nuclear scientists and dealt a major blow to the country’s retaliatory capabilities, destroying not only much of its ballistic missile stockpiles but also crippling its launch platforms.

Meanwhile, US Special Envoy for Syria Thomas Barrack, who is currently visiting Beirut, met with Lebanon’s Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, a close Hezbollah ally, and cautioned him against involving Lebanon in the escalating Israeli-Iranian conflict.

“I can say on behalf of President Trump … that would be a very, very, very bad decision,” Barrack said.

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