Hezbollah vows response to 'Israeli air strike'
Hezbollah on Wednesday threatened to retaliate after
Israel's first reported air raid targeting a position of the Lebanese Shiite
movement since a 2006 war.
The statement comes two days after Israeli warplanes struck
a Hezbollah position in eastern Lebanon, amid fears that the region may be
dragged into further conflict.
"On Monday night... the Israeli enemy's warplanes
bombarded a Hezbollah position on the Lebanese-Syrian border, near the area of
Janta in the Bekaa Valley" of eastern Lebanon, Hezbollah said.
Wednesday's statement was the group's first admission that
it had been the target of the raid, although Lebanese sources had previously
reported the attack.
"This new attack amounts to blatant aggression against
Lebanon, its sovereignty and territory," the militant group said, adding
that "it will not stand without a response from the Resistance, which will
choose the appropriate time, place and means."
Hezbollah said: "This aggression did not, thank God,
cause any deaths or injuries. There was only some material damage."
The movement's backer Iran also said the movement had the
right to respond.
Hezbollah, which brands itself a resistance movement against
Israel, was formed in 1982 by Iran's Revolutionary Guards and was the principal
actor in ending Israel's occupation of southern Lebanon in 2000.
Hezbollah is Lebanon's only movement that has not disarmed
since the small Mediterranean country's brutal 15-year civil war ended in 1990.
It has bases in the south of Lebanon, the Bekaa Valley in
the east, and in its southern Beirut bastion.
The group denied earlier reports that Israel's raids had hit
"artillery positions or missiles".
On Monday night, a Lebanese security source told AFP two
raids had hit a Hezbollah target near the Lebanese-Syrian border.
Hezbollah's Al-Manar television channel had denied any raid
had hit Lebanese territory.
- Israeli 'no comment' -
On Tuesday, Israeli officials refrained from commenting
specifically on the raid, although they confirmed a policy of interdiction of
suspected arms deliveries from Syria to Hezbollah.
"We are doing everything that is necessary in order to
defend the security of Israel," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
said.
"We will not say what we're doing or what we're not
doing."
Meanwhile in Damascus, Alaeddin Boroujerdi, who chair's
Iran's parliament committee on foreign policy and national security, echoed
Hezbollah's threat to retaliate.
"I think the resistance (Hezbollah) knows its lesson
well and how it should behave," Boroujerdi told reporters.
"There is no doubt whatsoever... that it was the
Zionist entity that started in this game, and Hezbollah maintains the right to
respond... and there is no doubt that the Zionist entity's losses will
multiply," he added.
It was the first Israeli attack against Hezbollah in Lebanon
since their 2006 war that killed more than 1,200 Lebanese, mostly civilians,
and some 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers.
Hezbollah acknowledged last spring that it is sending
fighters into neighbouring Syria to support President Bashar al-Assad's forces
as they battle a nearly three-year uprising.
According to Waddah Charara, a sociology professor and
author of "The State of Hezbollah", the raids could mark an important
turning point.
Now "Israel can attack Lebanon because it knows there
will be no reaction at the national level," Charara said.
The movement enjoyed widespread support in Lebanon during
the 2006 conflict with Israel, but its popularity has diminished in recent
years, and its decision to intervene in the Syrian conflict is controversial.
Syria has long provided arms and other aid to Hezbollah, and
also served as a conduit for Iranian military aid to the movement.
In May, Israel launched two raids targeting what it said
were arms convoys near Damascus destined for Hezbollah.
And on November 1 last year, there were reports of an
Israeli strike against a Syrian air base where missiles to be supplied to
Hezbollah were located.
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