Jumblat Says Lebanon Cannot Bear New 'Adventure'

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat stressed on Tuesday that Lebanon cannot endure any “adventure,” pointing out that the Israeli airstrike that killed a prominent Hizbullah fighter with five other members occurred in Syria's Golan Heights and not on Lebanese territories.

“We are only concerned with the occupied land on Kfarshouba Hills and the Shebaa Farms and have nothing to do with what happens in Syria,” Jumblat said in comments published in al-Mustaqbal newspaper.

Tehran also announced that a senior Iranian general was killed in the strike, underscoring the extent of Iran and Hizbullah's deep involvement in the volatile area on Israel's doorstep.

Sunday's deadly attack placed Hizbullah in a tough spot, as it weighs carefully how to respond. A significant retaliation risks drawing even tougher Israeli reprisals, plunging Lebanon into yet another crippling war with the Jewish state for which there is very little appetite among Lebanese public opinion.

Jumblat told the newspaper that the “resistance and Hizbullah's secretary general (Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah) have enough sight and awareness that Lebanon cannot endure any military adventure.”

“But of course we have to always be aware not to slip into another military standoff with Israel.”

Stretched thin and neck-deep in Syria's civil war where the group's fighters are battling alongside President Bashar Assad's forces, Hizbullah must also decide whether it can afford to open up another front with Israel.

The last such airstrike was in early December, when Israeli warplanes struck near Damascus' international airport, as well as outside a town close to the Syria-Lebanon border.

H.K.

G.K.