23 February 2017

BAALBECK, Lebanon: Israeli warplanes struck posts along the Lebanese border with Syria in a predawn raid Wednesday. A security source told The Daily Star that Israeli warplanes flying over Lebanon carried out the attack around 3 a.m., hitting the outskirts of Qalamoun in Syria, near the Lebanese border town of Nahleh.

It remains unclear what the raid was targeting.

A witness in the area said that residents of Baalbeck heard loud bangs at dawn as Israeli warplanes broke the sound barrier.

Hezbollahs Media War Center denied the raid had targeted the forces positions in a statement on Twitter. Reports of an Israeli raid that targeted resistance posts in an area on Lebanons eastern mountain range, on the outskirts of [the town of] Nahleh and Syrian Qalamoun are not true, it said.

Israeli newspaper Haaretz quoted Rami Abdel-Rahman, head of the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, as telling the German news agency DPA, Israeli warplanes fired at least six rockets on depots in the area of Qutayfa, northeast of Damascus. It was not clear if the targeted sites belong to the Syrian army or its allied Lebanese Hezbollah movement, he added.

Russias Sputnik News agency said that the airstrike had targeted Syrian forces stationed in the western countryside of Damascus near the Lebanese border.

No casualties have been reported.

Israel has struck targets in Syria on dozens of occasions since the outbreak of the countrys conflict in 2011. The strikes are believed to be in accordance with red lines Israel has drawn with Hezbollah, whereby the Jewish state targets convoys it believes contain advanced weaponry.

In addition to the occasional strike in Syria, Israels air force and navy violate Lebanons sovereignty on a near-daily basis.

The attack comes a week after Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah made a series of speeches in which he assured the Lebanese public that war was unforeseeable between Hezbollah and Israel in 2017. Nasrallah pointed to Hezbollahs increased military capabilities as the main deterrent preventing Israeli aggressions, seemingly confident that the Israel would not be able to achieve any of its strategic goals if it were to wage war on Lebanon.

Hezbollah disclosed it was fighting alongside Syrian President Bashar Assads forces in 2013; however, observers say they have been involved since early in the 6-year-old conflict. It is one of the major forces on the ground and has been instrumental in the regimes survival, playing a decisive role in securing victories in Aleppo and the rugged mountains of Qalamoun.

Copyright The Daily Star 2017.