Hizbullah Buries Mughniyeh as Party Officials Stay Mum on Possible Response
Hizbullah's Jihad Mughniyeh, the son of its slain former military commander, was laid to rest on Monday a day after an Israeli strike in Syria that killed six of the party's fighters.
The raid, near Quneitra on the Syrian-controlled side of the Golan Heights, enraged the group's supporters, but analysts said Hizbullah would seek to avoid a major escalation with Israel.
Once solely focused on fighting Tel Aviv, Hizbullah is now deeply involved in the war in neighboring Syria, where it backs President Bashar Assad against the rebels seeking to topple him.
With its forces spread thin, and little appetite in fragile Lebanon for a new conflict with Israel, analysts said Hizbullah would have to find a way to respond without provoking a full-on war.
Hizbullah officials said Jihad Mughniyeh, son of the late Imad Mughniyeh, would be buried at Rawdat al-Shahidayn on Monday afternoon in Beirut's southern suburbs, a stronghold of the group.
He is to be interred in the same grave as his father, who was killed in a 2008 car bombing in Syria that Hizbullah blamed on Israel.
Massive crowds gathered at the funeral.
"God willing, the resistance will retaliate but the leadership of the resistance will be the one to decide the nature and timing," said Hassana Sadaqa, as she prepared to pay her respects.
Mourners chanted "Our party is Hizbullah, our leader is Nasrallah" as the coffin was carried through the streets.
Speaking to reporters at the funeral, Mahmoud Qmati, a member of Hizbullah's political bureau, said all-out war was unlikely, but that "the war of (limited) strikes, assassinations and intermittent confrontation continues."
But another Hizbullah official, MP Bilal Farhat, refused to say what might happen next. "Let's wait and see," he said.
The six fighters killed on Sunday afternoon were carrying out a field reconnaissance mission in Mazraat al-Amal village, Hizbullah said.
An Israeli security source confirmed that an Israeli helicopter had carried out a strike against "terrorists" in the Golan who were allegedly carrying out an attack.
In addition to Mughniyeh, the strike killed Mohammed Issa, a senior commander responsible for Hizbullah's operations in Syria and Iraq, a source within the party told Agence France Presse.
There was no immediate comment from Hizbullah officials, but al-Manar branded the strike "a costly adventure that threatens the security of the Middle East.”
The raid came days after Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah threatened to retaliate against Israel for its repeated strikes on targets in Syria.
Hizbullah says its intervention in the Syrian conflict helps the struggle against Israel because the Damascus regime forms part of a "resistance axis" alongside its main regional ally Tehran.
"The repeated bombings that struck several targets in Syria are a major violation, and we consider that any strike against Syria is a strike against the whole of the resistance axis," Nasrallah said in an interview on Thursday.
He boasted that Hizbullah was "stronger that we ever were as a resistance movement" and touted its sophisticated arsenal, including Fateh-110 missiles.
The missiles have a range of 200 kilometers or more and are capable of hitting much of Israel.
Analysts said the precision Israeli strike, just days after Nasrallah's bellicose remarks, stood to embarrass Hizbullah.
"What happened is that the Israelis called Hizbullah's bluff last night," said Hilal Khashan, a professor of political science at the American University in Beirut.
"Hizbullah will not be able to retaliate, because if it retaliates, it will be another war. Hizbullah is in Syria and it is not ready for another war against Israel."
Khashan said the movement could resort to small-scale attacks, like a roadside bomb on the ceasefire line with Israel it claimed last year, but would avoid a more serious response.
"Nasrallah will say the Israelis are trying to provoke us to help in their elections and we will not fall into their trap. That's the best they can do," he added.
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.
In Israel, analysts made the same calculation.
"Hizbullah doesn’t want a full-fledged war," said Yoram Schweitzer, a former Israeli military counterterrorism chief.
"It has a number of possibilities to respond in different arenas. We assume that it currently does not want full contact," he told AFP.
In an interview with Army Radio, Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin, the former head of Israel's Military Intelligence, said Hizbullah “will have difficulty absorbing an incident like this” without responding.
“Hizbullah and Nasrallah will have to consult with their Iranian masters and take into consideration whether a fierce response will drag the region into war,” Yadlin said.
Source: Agence France Presse, Naharnet
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