Israel has said it is sending military reinforcements to its northern border after the Lebanese-based Hezbollah group threatened retaliation for the murder of one of its members in an attack in Syria earlier this week.
The Israeli army said on its Twitter account on Thursday that the move was “according to a situational assessment.”
Based on a recently conducted situational assessment, we have decided to reinforce the Northern Command with selected infantry forces.
– Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) July 23, 2020
Hezbollah-run broadcaster al-Manar identified the man killed in Monday’s airstrike near Damascus International Airport as Ali Kamel Mohsen. The attack also killed four other foreign fighters and was widely attributed to Israel, which has carried out dozens of airstrikes against what it says are Iran-aligned fighters within Syria.
Hezbollah legislator Sheikh Hassan Ezzedine said during the Mohsen funeral that “the war between us and this enemy [Israel] will continue and this path that the martyrs have taken with their blood will continue. “
Israel did not comment on this week’s attacks, as it generally refrains from discussing its activities in neighboring Syria, but It has acknowledged many raids inside Syria since the start of the war in 2011.
Formed in the early 1980s, Hezbollah fought Israel in a 2006 war that highlighted the Shiite group’s military capabilities.
It was able to overwhelm Israel’s ground invasion of southern Lebanon and attack military and civilian targets, undermining support for the war within Israel.
After the Syrian war broke out almost 10 years ago, Hezbollah supported President Bashar al-Assad, with thousands of his fighters traveling to Syria.
Israel has repeatedly bombed what it claims to be sites belonging to Iranian-backed militias, including Hezbollah, inside Syria for years. It has accused Iran of supporting Hezbollah with money and weapons.
Western intelligence sources reportedly say Israel’s attacks on Syria are part of a US-approved shadow war and part of its anti-Iran policy.
Hezbollah has promised in the past to retaliate for any fighter that Israel kills in Syria. The group fired a barrage of anti-tank missiles at Israel on September 1 last year after two of its fighters were killed in an Israeli airstrike near Damascus days earlier.
That sparked retaliation for heavy Israeli artillery fire in a rare explosion of fighting between the two sides.
Israeli defense officials have said in recent months that Israel will step up its campaign against Iran in Syria.
SOURCE:
Al Jazeera and news agencies
.
