Israel Allegedly Strikes Hezbollah Targets in Syria

February 23, 2017

by: Ilse Posselt

Thursday, 23 February 2017 | Syrian and Lebanese media yesterday accused the Jewish state of carrying out an airstrike near the Syrian capital in the predawn hours of Wednesday morning. The reports claim that the Israeli jets targeted Syrian Army positions, including an arms convoy carrying a shipment of state-of-the-art weapons destined for the Shiite Lebanese terror group, Hezbollah.

The strike allegedly occurred at around 3:00 am in the Qalamoun Mountain district close to the Lebanese-Syrian border. The Syrian Shaam news service quoted a spokesperson from a nearby city who claimed hearing “loud explosion sounds” when Israeli jets fired a total of six missiles at various targets. The spokesperson added that the missiles struck military positions in the area, a weapons cache as well as a convoy of weapons heading for Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The Syrian and Lebanese media offered conflicting reports as to the logistics of the strike. According to Syria’s al-Masdar, the Israeli jets flew through Lebanon airspace before reaching Syria. The target, al-Masdar claims, was a Hezbollah weapons convoy. For its part, Lebanese reports claim that the aircraft fired into Syrian airspace while still in Lebanon and struck a number of Hezbollah military buses located at a Syrian Army base.

The powers-that-be in the Jewish state declined to comment on the allegations, in line with its usual policy to neither confirm nor deny reports of supposed Israeli airstrikes on foreign soil.

Since the start of the bloody Syrian civil war, Jerusalem has chosen to remain on the sidelines of the conflict. However, a number of senior Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister, Avigdor Lieberman have disclosed that the Jewish state acts to ensure that chaos of civil war is not used as a cover to smuggle advanced weapons from Syria to Hezbollah for use against Israeli targets.

In fact, early in December 2016, Lieberman admitted to a strike in Syria, saying that it was launched to prevent the Lebanese terror organization from obtaining “advanced weapons, military equipment and weapons of mass destruction.”

At present, thousands of Hezbollah terrorists are embroiled in the Syrian civil war, fighting alongside the President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and forces from Iran. At the same time, Hezbollah has also been reinforcing its military capacity in Lebanon near the border with Israel.

The accusations of the attack follow a week after Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah appeared on Iranian and Lebanese television threatening to attack the Jewish state in the near future. “Hezbollah will have no red lines in the next war with Israel,” he added. Hezbollah, Nasrallah continued, possesses missiles that can reach Israel’s supposed nuclear reactor in Dimona. He thus warned that Israel “should think a million times” before engaging in conflict with the terror group.

Posted on February 23, 2017

Source: (Bridges for Peace, 23 February 2017)

Photo Credit: Public Domain/Wikipedia

Photo License: Wikipedia