Hezbollah for action, Syria warns of blowback after Israel air strikes
BEIRUT/DAMASCUS: As Israel carried out deadly air strikes in Lebanon and Syria on Tuesday, Hezbollah called the move a “major escalation” while Damascus promised to use its “legitimate right to defend its land and its people”.
According to details, Lebanese group Hezbollah condemned an Israeli air strike that killed 12 people in the Bekaa Valley as a “major escalation”.
In a statement, the group said Israel’s attack “constitutes a major escalation in the context of the ongoing aggression against Lebanon and its people”.
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Moreover, it called on Lebanese authorities to “take serious, immediate, and decisive action” to uphold a November ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.
AGGRESSION AND CONSEQUENCES
Similarly, Syria reacted strongly to the Israeli air strikes on the southern Druze-majority province of Sweida, where government forces entered after bloody sectarian clashes that left more than 100 dead.
“The Syrian Arab Republic condemns in the strongest terms the treacherous Israeli aggression carried out today through coordinated drone attacks and military air strikes,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.
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About the human losses, it said that “a number of our armed forces and security personnel” as well as “several innocent civilians” were killed.
Damascus “holds Israel fully responsible for this aggression and its consequences”, the ministry added, stressing Syria’s “legitimate right to defend its land and its people by all means permitted under international law”.
BEKKA VALLEY
Earlier, Israeli strikes on the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon killed 12 people, Lebanese state media reported, as the Israeli army said it hit Hezbollah targets in the area.
“Enemy warplanes launched raids on the Wadi Fara area in the northern Bekaa Valley, one of which targeted a camp for displaced Syrians, resulting in the deaths of 12 martyrs, including seven Syrians, and eight wounded,” Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported.
SYRIAN FORCES TARGETED
On the other hand, Israel’s military said it was striking military vehicles belonging to government forces in the Sweida area of southern Syria, after Syrian state media reported a new strike on the Druze-majority city.
“A short while ago, the (Israeli army) began striking military vehicles belonging to Syrian regime forces in the area of Sweida in southern Syria,” a military statement said.
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The announcement came shortly after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz said they had ordered the army to “immediately strike regime forces and weaponry that were brought into the Sweida region in the the Druze mountains in Syria in order to carry out operations against the Druze”.
US ‘WORRIED’
As Israel cited operation against the Druze as an excuse for attacking the Syrian forces, US diplomat Tom Barrack said Tuesday that deadly violence in Sweida was “worrisome” and that his government was working to restore calm in the country.
“The recent skirmishes in Sweida are worrisome on all sides, and we are attempting to come to a peaceful, inclusive outcome for Druze, Bedouin tribes, the Syrian government and Israeli forces,” Barrack, Washington’s special envoy to Syria, said on X, naming the parties involved in the violence since Sunday.
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