Iran celebrates Hezbollah and other proxy attacks on Israel - analysis

Iranian state media has highlighted several developments over the past week focusing on the role of its proxies in their attacks on Israel. The importance of these articles, primarily at Iran’s IRNA state media, is that it reveals where Iran’s focus is today. The new president of Iran and his new foreign minister have been focusing on diplomacy. This has led Iran’s military and security establishment to continue to claim they will attack Israel, but the attacks have been postponed. In their place Iran is focused on Hezbollah and other proxy groups.

What can we learn from recent Iranian media coverage of the activity of the proxies. First of all, Iran is focused on the success of Hezbollah, particularly its use of drones. A report at IRNA says that Israel “fears” Hezbollah drones. In a statement on August 31 Hezbollah also said it had carried out an attack on several places in northern Israel. “In a separate statement, Hezbollah said it had launched an aerial attack with a swarm of armed drones on the headquarters of [an IDF] Battalion in the Beit Hillel barracks,” the IRNA report said.

Hezbollah also claimed to target the Baranit “barracks” which it has targeted numerous times in the past. Another report in Iran claimed that Hezbollah had dealt a “fatal blow” to an IDF “espionage” base. It is likely that Iran works closely with Hezbollah to choose targets within Israel. Hezbollah attempted a large attack on Israel last week but the IDF largely pre-empted most of the attack. Nevertheless hundreds of rockets were launched at Israel.

On August 29 Iranian media also reported that militias in Iraq had carried out a drone attack targeting Israel. The report claimed the drone targeted Haifa, although there was no evidence this actually took place. “The Islamic Resistance in Iraq has carried out a drone attack on Haifa’s industrial power plant in the occupied Palestinian territories,” IRNA noted. The “Islamic Resistance in Iraq,” is the term for an umbrella group of pro-Iranian militias.

Iran is also seeking to push the Houthis to continue attacks in the Red Sea. “Iran's Mission to the United Nations says Yemen's Ansarullah Movement has agreed to a temporary ceasefire to allow tugboats and rescuers in the Red Sea to extinguish fires that broke out on an oil tanker after being attacked in the strategic waterway,” IRNA reported. This illustrates how Iran is behind the Houthi attacks and can also call them off if it wants to. The “Ansarullah” movement is the name of the Houthis that Iran uses.

Iran not forgetting the West Bank

Iran is also focused on the West Bank. The IDF launched a multi-pronged raid on terrorist groups in the West Bank over the last several days. Israel has accused Iran of being behind the increase of terror threats in the West Bank. Iran is keenly focused on developments there. It wants to improve the position of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the West Bank and spread chaos there via smuggling weapons and munitions to the terrorist groups. Iranian state media last week claims that a terrorist group had downed a drone in clashes in the West Bank. In addition, according to Al-Jazeera, the Tulkarm Battalion said it shot down a drone near Jenin.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani condemned the IDF’s operations in the West Bank. “The intensification of Zionist military attacks on the West Bank is a clear indication of the sinister and racist intentions of this regime for the entire geography of Palestine and the Palestinians and the Islamic sanctuaries of this holy land,” he said. This shows that Iran wants to mobilize world opinion against the raids and prevent them so that its proxies in the West Bank can continue to threaten Israel.

Iran continues to threaten Israel directly. The Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of Iran Major General Mohammad Bagheri “has said that Iran will deliver a calculated response to the Israeli regime’s assassination last month of a top Palestinian resistance leader in Tehran,” IRNA noted. Iran hopes that pressure on Israel will continue in the region and this will isolate Israel. Iran is making these statements around the time of the fourth anniversary of the Abraham Accords. Iran prodded its proxies to attack Israel and prodded Hamas to carry out the October 7 attacks in order to prevent further rounds of normalization. Now Iran wants to isolate Israel from its ties with the West as well.

Taken together it’s clear that despite Iran’s diplomatic offensive on other fronts, Iran is seeking to continue to ring Israel with proxy threats and increase the pressure on Israel from Hezbollah and groups in the West Bank.