The Media Line: Iran Claims Israel Has Lost Deterrence Power After Hezbollah’s Surprise Attack

Iran declared on Monday that Israel’s deterrent power has eroded, signaling a shift in the strategic balance of the region, according to Iranian officials. The statements come in the wake of a large-scale Hezbollah attack on Israel on Sunday, which Tehran claims caught Israel off-guard despite its preemptive efforts.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani asserted that Israel’s defenses have weakened, particularly in the face of resistance groups like Hezbollah. “Despite the comprehensive support of states like the United States, Israel could not predict the time and place of a limited and managed response by the resistance. Israel has lost its deterrence power,” Kanaani wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

Kanaani also argued that Israel must now focus on defending its own territories, stating, “Strategic balances have undergone fundamental changes” to Israel’s disadvantage.

On Sunday, Hezbollah launched hundreds of rockets and drones toward Israel, with Israel’s military responding by striking targets in Lebanon with approximately 100 fighter jets. The Israeli Defense Forces reported that most of the rockets and drones were intercepted or landed in uninhabited areas, though some did cause damage to homes. Tragically, a navy soldier was killed during the attack, apparently due to a malfunctioning interceptor rocket.

The attack by Hezbollah was claimed as a retaliation for the assassination of Fuad Shukr, a senior Hezbollah military commander, who was killed by an Israeli airstrike in Beirut last month. Shukr’s death followed a Hezbollah rocket attack that killed 12 Israeli children in a village on the Golan Heights.