Hezbollah and its allies gain in Lebanon vote!

Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri speaks during a press conference in Beirut, Lebanon.

• An Israeli minister said the outcome showed the Lebanese state was indistinguishable from Hezbollah.

Hezbollah and its political allies won just over half the seats in Lebanon's parliamentary election, unofficial results showed, underlining Tehran's growing regional clout.Prime Minister Saad Al Hariri said his Sunni-dominated political movement had lost a third of its seats in parliament following the country's first general election in nine years.

Al Hariri said the results credit his Future Movement with 21 of parliament's 128 seats, a drop from the 33 it controlled in the outgoing legislature.

He blamed a complex new law that redrew constituency boundaries and changed the electoral system from winner-takes-all to a proportional one, and gaps in his party's performance.

An Israeli minister said the outcome showed the Lebanese state was indistinguishable from Hezbollah.