Army, UNIFIL Patrol Border Area amid High Alert after Israeli Strike on Hizbullah
إقرأ هذا الخبر بالعربية
The Lebanese army and U.N. peacekeepers on Monday carried out patrols along the border with Israel amid a high alert in the area, mainly near the occupied Shebaa Farms, a day after Israel's deadly air strike on Hizbullah members in Syria.
The state-run National News Agency said Lebanese troops and UNIFIL patrolled the southern border while Israel stopped its patrols along the technical fence and intensified them one to two kilometers deep into Israeli territory.
There was high alert in the South in general after at least six Hizbullah members were killed on Sunday in an Israeli strike in an area known as Mazraat al-Amal on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights.
Israel seized part of the mountainous Golan Heights plateau from Syria during the 1967 Mideast war.
Despite the alert, UNIFIL spokesman Andrea Tenenti described the situation in the peacekeepers' area of operations as “normal.”
“Nothing has changed,” he said, adding “UNIFIL is carrying out its routine patrols with the Lebanese army.”
In a statement issued to the media on Sunday night, Hizbullah identified one of the six slain men as Jihad Mughniyeh, the son of Imad Mughniyeh, a top Hizbullah operative assassinated in a 2008 car bombing in Damascus.
The dead also included another senior Hizbullah commander, Mohammed Issa, and at least one Iranian national with the group, the statement said.
The Israeli air force has carried out several raids against targets in Syria, including depots allegedly storing weapons meant for Hizbullah, since the conflict there started nearly four years ago.
The most recent strike was in December, when Israeli warplanes struck weapons warehouses near Damascus, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group.
Sources close to Hizbullah told As Safir daily that the party's retaliation to Sunday's strike is "inevitable.”
But the officials said the retaliation would not lead to an all-out war.
“The party will take the time it sees necessary to set its next steps with calm and decisiveness,” they added.
19 January 2015, 13:48
71
Several questions:
- Why would Israel strike and kill this group composed of Hezbollah and Iranian high level military commanders?
- What was this group doing there?
- Were any Syrian army officials with them?
- How did the Israelis know about the group and assess them as a potential threat?
This is a story I would like to read.
Another potential alternative is that this Hezbollah and Iranian team was killed by the other barbarians of Al Nusrah or ISIL and by announcing that it was Israel that killed them, they are giving them an honourable death.
After all Mughnieh's son can only die an honourable death and death by ISIL isn't one.
Israel obliges because it is in its interest, (Netenyahu has elections and he looks strong and they also did the Islamic Republic of Iran and Hezbollah a favour that would be repaid heftily.)
19 January 2015, 13:55
72
As this happened in Syria, and no Lebanese soldiers were affected, what has it to do with Lebanon?
Exactly who cares that terrorists and their backers were killed in another country, and who care who did it?
19 January 2015, 14:39
41
You remind me of the good old days of Syrian occupation: insults and car bombs.
Now it is Hezbollah and Iran occupying Syria...am glad you are happy.
19 January 2015, 14:06
53
Those hezb jihadis were killed in Syria if they want to retaliate they should do it from Syria, this time Qatar won't be here to rebuild Shia villages.
19 January 2015, 17:59
00
Islamist terrorists liquidated by IDF in Syria. What the hell does Lebanon have to do with that? A question, the same old question, Salam's "govt" & the rest of "dialoguers" have to answer to.
