Hezbollah Vows Retaliation After Israeli Airstrikes Kill Civilians in Southern Lebanon

EghtesadOnline: “Today’s offensive against southern Lebanon, during which a number of civilians were martyred, cannot pass without a response. There will surely be a response and it will be of the required level,” Hashem Safieddine, the head of Hezbollah’s executive council, said on Wednesday, according to Press TV.

It was the first reaction by Hezbollah to a wave of Israeli attacks in various areas in southern Lebanon.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA) said Israeli warplanes targeted a house in Sawwaneh with two strikes, “leading to its destruction” and the death of three members of the same family. It identified the dead as a Syrian woman and two children, aged 13 and 2.

The NNA also said an Israeli attack targeting south Lebanon’s Adshit killed one person, who Hezbollah announced was one of its fighters. The attack wounded 10 others, “completely destroying” a building and causing “great damage to commercial establishments, shops and homes” nearby.

Israel said it had responded to rocket fire from Lebanon that killed a soldier and wounded at least eight people in the town of Safed in the occupied territories.

Hezbollah and the Israeli regime have been trading near daily cross-border fire since the Israeli bombardment of Gaza began in October.

Hezbollah says its operations are meant to support Gaza’s resistance.

Israeli military chief Herzi Halevi said after meeting commanders near Lebanon’s border that Israel’s “next campaign will be very much on the offensive, and we will use all the tools and all capabilities.”

“We are intensifying the strikes all the time,” he said in a statement.

Hezbollah’s Secretary General Seyed Hassan Nasrallah said in a televised address on Tuesday that Lebanon’s resistance would only stop exchanges of fire when a full ceasefire is in place in the besieged Gaza Strip.

“On that day, when the shooting stops in Gaza, we will stop the shooting in the south,” Nasrallah stated.

“If they (Israel) broaden the confrontation, we will do the same,” Nasrallah warned in the televised address. / Tasnim