Israel Warns Lebanon, Syria against Any Reprisal from their Soil
Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon warned on Friday Hizbullah and Damascus not to launch any attack on the Jewish state, stressing that Lebanon and Syria will be held responsible for any retaliatory attack.
“Israel will consider governments, regimes and organizations beyond its northern border responsible for any attack from their territories,” Yaalon said in a statement.
He expressed hope that the region avoids reprisals for the Israeli airstrike that killed a high-ranking Iranian commander and six Hizbullah fighters, including Jihad Mughniyeh, the son of Imad Mughniyeh — a top operative who was assassinated in 2008 in Damascus in a bombing that the party blamed on Israel. Thousands of mourners attended his funeral Monday in Beirut.
Yaalon vowed that his country will avenge any “harm inflicted on Israeli sovereignty, civilians and soldiers.”
Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah is expected to make a speech on January 30 during a popular rally to mourn the party fighters who were killed in the Israeli airstrike in Syria's Quneitra on Sunday, and reveal his party's stance and response.
Israel and Hizbullah are bitter enemies and fought a bloody month-long war in the summer of 2006.
Since Syria's civil war began in March 2011, Israel has reportedly carried out several airstrikes in Syria that have targeted sophisticated weapons systems, including Russian-made anti-aircraft missiles and Iranian-made missiles, believed to be destined for Hizbullah.
Nasrallah recently said Hizbullah reserves the right to retaliate for those attacks. He also reiterated that the party may retaliate at any time for the assassination of the elder Mughniyeh.
H.K.
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