Qassem Says Assassination of Any Hizbullah Figure in Syria Can't Go Unpunished
Hizbullah deputy chief Sheikh Naim Qassem has warned Israel that the assassination of any Hizbullah operative in Syria cannot go unpunished.
“The assassination of the martyr Samir al-Quntar is part of Israel's attempt to create new rules of engagement and to give the impression that killing operations in Syria can go without a response,” Qassem said in an interview.
“Some media outlets claimed that Hizbullah does not consider al-Quntar one of its actual cadres, but Hizbullah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah's remarks were clear regarding the response,” Hizbullah number two added.
“The Israelis understood the message: operating in the Syrian arena to assassinate officials or members of the resistance and Hizbullah cannot go unnoticed,” Qassem went on to say.
Tensions surged between Israel and Hizbullah in recent days after the party accused Israel's air force of carrying out a raid that killed Samir al-Quntar near Damascus.
On Sunday, Nasrallah reiterated a pledge that his group will retaliate to the assassination. “The retaliation to Samir's assassination will inevitably come,” Nasrallah vowed, noting that the timing and place of the response is now in the hands of Hizbullah's fighters and military commanders.
Qassem noted that Israel “has not directly assassinated any Hizbullah cadre or figure inside Lebanon since 2006 because it knows that such a move might blow up the situation.”
“They thought that bombing in Syria might not push Hizbullah to retaliate out of fear of possible repercussions … but we responded in the occupied Shebaa Farms in Lebanon” in January 2008, in the wake of the assassination of Hizbullah's top operative Jihad Mughniyeh and five other Hizbullah members.
Hizbullah played a key role in Quntar's release from prison after he had spent 30 years in Israeli jails, becoming known as the longest-serving Arab prisoner.
Shortly after his release, Quntar joined Hizbullah.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said he became "head of the Syrian Resistance for the Liberation of the Golan," a group launched two years ago by Hizbullah in the Syrian region, most of which Israel seized in the 1967 Middle East war.
Y.R.
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