Report: Hizbullah's Involvement in Regional Conflicts 'Has Not Distracted it from Israel'
The tensions that erupted between Hizbullah and Israel on Monday will not lead to a major conflict between the two sides, assured security sources to al-Joumhouria newspaper on Tuesday.
Sources close to the party added however that “once Hizbullah vows that it will retaliate to an Israeli assault, then it will fulfill it.”
“The party's involvement in Syria, its open confrontation with Saudi Arabia, and its military battle with takfiris along the border have not distracted it from its constant open front with Israel,” they stressed.
“The resistance would not have targeted Israel without knowing in advance what repercussions that operation would incur,” they added.
The security sources meanwhile emphasized that the “international conditions will not allow a major security violation” to occur between Lebanon and Israel.
“What happened on Monday is limited to a quick and limited response” to Israel's assassination of prominent Hizbullah member Samir al-Quntar in December, they explained to al-Joumhouria.
“The Shebaa operation should not be blown out of proportion,” they urged,
“The situation is therefore under control and the tensions will not increase, which has been demonstrated by the calm that has pervaded the area,” they noted.
Hizbullah targeted an Israeli patrol in the occupied Shebaa Farms with an explosive device on Monday, prompting Israel to shell areas in southern Lebanon.
The operation was a response to the assassination of al-Quntar, who was killed in an airstrike in Syria blamed on Israel.
Israel retaliated on Monday by opening artillery fire on areas in southern Lebanon.
The Shebaa Farms have been under Israeli occupation since the 1967 Middle East war. Lebanon says the area is Lebanese territory, while the United Nations says it was annexed from Syria.
Hizbullah has an extensive presence in Syria, where it is mostly working to bolster the regime against an uprising that began in March 2011.
Hizbullah and Israel scuffle intermittently in the disputed border area between Lebanon and Israel, and the powerful Lebanese group has in the past targeted Israeli army patrols in response to strikes against its members.
In January last year, it claimed an attack in the Shebaa Farms against an army patrol in apparent revenge for an Israeli strike in Syria that killed six Hizbullah fighters and a member of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards.
In 2006, Israel fought a devastating war against Hizbullah that killed more than 1,200 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians, and some 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers.
M.T.
D.A.
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