In the Lebanese national elections, held last Sunday, Hizballah fared poorly, winning only 62 (out of 128) seats in the parliament, and thus losing its previous 71-seat majority. The Christian Lebanese Forces party—the Iran-backed terrorist group’s major political opponent—meanwhile gained four new seats. But electoral disappointments won’t weaken Hizballah’s deeply entrenched control of the country, writes Eyal Zisser:

[True], these elections are a blow to Hezbollah from which it will struggle to recover: first, the voting numbers in all of Lebanon are low, with just 41 percent of eligible voters bothering to show up. In the country’s Shiite areas, voter turnout was even lower. This can be viewed as an expression of anger and lack of faith toward Hizballah, which failed in its efforts to rally popular support.

Second, many of Hizballah’s allies among the other ethnic groups lost in the regions in which they ran against their rivals, who openly criticized their alliance with Hizballah. Among the Christians, for example, President Michel Aoun’s party suffered a trouncing, as did Hizballah’s Druze allies.

These aren’t the results Hizballah wished for, but it can live with them as long as its control over the country remains intact. . . . Hizballah will continue doing as it pleases while leaning on a corrupt elite class (the local version of mafia families in the U.S.), which will also remain in control of Lebanese society and state affairs.

Early Friday morning, Israel attacked military installations near the Iranian cities of Isfahan and nearby Natanz, the latter being one of the hubs of the country’s nuclear program. Jerusalem is not taking credit for the attack, and none of the details are too certain, but it seems that the attack involved multiple drones, likely launched from within Iran, as well as one or more missiles fired from Syrian or Iraqi airspace. Strikes on Syrian radar systems shortly beforehand probably helped make the attack possible, and there were reportedly strikes on Iraq as well.

Iran itself is downplaying the attack, but the S-300 air-defense batteries in Isfahan appear to have been destroyed or damaged. This is a sophisticated Russian-made system positioned to protect the Natanz nuclear installation. In other words, Israel has demonstrated that Iran’s best technology can’t protect the country’s skies from the IDF. As Yossi Kuperwasser puts it, the attack, combined with the response to the assault on April 13,

clarified to the Iranians that whereas we [Israelis] are not as vulnerable as they thought, they are more vulnerable than they thought. They have difficulty hitting us, but we have no difficulty hitting them.

Nobody knows exactly how the operation was carried out. . . . It is good that a question mark hovers over . . . what exactly Israel did. Let’s keep them wondering. It is good for deniability and good for keeping the enemy uncertain.

The fact that we chose targets that were in the vicinity of a major nuclear facility but were linked to the Iranian missile and air forces was a good message. It communicated that we can reach other targets as well but, as we don’t want escalation, we chose targets nearby that were involved in the attack against Israel. I think it sends the message that if we want to, we can send a stronger message. Israel is not seeking escalation at the moment.