Israel Stages Drill in Shebaa Farms amid High Tensions
The Israeli army was carrying out a military drill on Monday evening in the occupied Shebaa Farms, amid high tensions that started with the assassination of Hizbullah top operative Samir al-Quntar in a Syria air raid blamed on Israel.
“A series of explosions were heard in the towns of al-Orqoub during a maneuver for the Israeli enemy's army on the eastern peripheries of the occupied Shebaa Farms,” Lebanon's National News Agency reported.
It said the drill started around 9:00 pm, noting that “heavy artillery is being used.”
Tensions surged between Israel and Hizbullah in recent days after the party accused Israel's air force of carrying out a raid that killed Samir al-Quntar near Damascus.
On Sunday, Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah reiterated his pledge that his group will retaliate to the assassination.
“The retaliation to Samir's assassination will inevitably come,” Nasrallah vowed, noting that the timing and place of the response is now in the hands of Hizbullah's fighters and military commanders.
“The Israelis are hiding like rats along the border … The Israelis are worried and they should be worried -- along the border and inside Israel. Their threats will not benefit them,” Nasrallah said.
Hizbullah played a key role in Quntar's release from prison after he had spent 30 years in Israeli jails, becoming known as the longest-serving Arab prisoner.
Shortly after his release, Quntar joined Hizbullah.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said he became "head of the Syrian Resistance for the Liberation of the Golan," a group launched two years ago by Hizbullah in the Syrian region, most of which Israel seized in the 1967 Middle East war.
Y.R.
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