The Iranian embassy had been set to move to a new apartment compound further down the same road where two siblings of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad own properties, the people said.

In the meantime, the embassy had been renting apartments on the second and third floors as residences for the ambassador and the consul. General Mohammad-Reza Zahedi, his deputy General Mohammad-Hadi Haji Rahimi and the five other Iranian officers killed felt it was the safest place in Damascus since a previous Israeli strike took out a senior Iranian officer in Syria in December, according to the people.

Drones, missiles

It was Iran’s greatest loss since the U.S. assassinated Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani in Iraq four years ago, and a huge setback for Hezbollah. In an April 8 televised eulogy that lasted nearly an hour, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah hailed Zahedi, and said he was “working night and day to serve this resistance” and advance its capabilities.

After publicly warning that a response was coming, Iran retaliated for Zahedi’s death by firing nearly 300 drones and missiles at Israel, almost all of which were intercepted.

The question now is how far Tehran will go in the confrontation and what role its proxy forces can play. Starting with Hezbollah in the 1980s, Iran has built up its network of forces and alliances in the Middle East for an all-out battle scenario with Israel. Iran-backed Palestinian militant group Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel and Israel’s subsequent invasion of Gaza are providing the pretext for both sides to look over the precipice.

The proxies have a “coordinated command mechanism” with Iran and could be activated on a much larger scale if “there’s stronger political willingness on the Iranian side to militarily engage with Israel,” said Abdolrasool Divsallar, senior scholar at the Washington-based Middle East Institute.

While missile and drone launches by Iran-backed Houthi militants against ships in the Red Sea have grabbed headlines and remain a serious threat, most of Israel’s attention is on Hezbollah — designated a terrorist group by the US and others — which is believed to possess the most formidable arsenal of missiles among all groups and is present at Israel’s borders in both Lebanon and Syria.

Zahedi’s death and Israel’s killing of some 300 Hezbollah members and the almost nonstop targeting of its infrastructure and supply lines in both Lebanon and Syria since Oct. 7 have shown the group’s vulnerabilities, said Lina Khatib, associate fellow at Chatham House, a London-based think tank.

‘Thousand cuts’

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