Hezbollah lawmaker says Israeli attack on Lebanon’s central Baalbek district ‘will not go unanswered’
Israeli fighter jets strike targets in Baalbek, marking significant escalation away from border
Hezbollah members in funeral ceremony for Senior Hezbollah commander Ali Muhammad al-Debs, killed in Israeli strike in Nabatieh, Lebanon on February 16, 2024.
BEIRUT
A Hezbollah lawmaker said on Monday that an Israeli airstrike in Baalbek in central Lebanon “will not go unanswered.”
“The enemy threatened Lebanon, and we tell them that the fire of resistance is burning and will confront any attack on our country,” Hassan Fadlallah said in a statement.
The Lebanese MP vowed: “This war will end with victory.”
Israeli fighter jets struck targets in Baalbek on Monday, marking a significant escalation away from the border confrontation with Hezbollah, witnesses told Anadolu.
Casualties are feared in the airstrikes that targeted a farm in the Hosh Tall Safiyah area in the town of Bodai near the city of Baalbek in Lebanon.
An Israeli army statement said warplanes struck Hezbollah compounds in Beqaa Valley in central Lebanon in response to the downing of an Israeli drone in southern Lebanon.
"The IDF (army) will continue operating to defend the State of Israel from the threat of Hezbollah terrorist organization, including in aerial operations above Lebanese territory," it added.
Baalbek is considered a stronghold of Hezbollah in eastern Lebanon, along the Syrian border.
The Israeli attack came a day after an Israeli airstrike on the Syrian border town of al-Qusayr, in which three Hezbollah members were killed.
Tension has flared along the shared border between Lebanon and Israel since the Oct. 7 cross-border offensive by Palestinian group Hamas last October. Nearly 29,800 Palestinians have been killed along with mass displacement, destruction and conditions for famine.
