Lebanon Accuses Israel of Attacks Amounting to War Declaration
Lebanon Accuses Israel of Attacks Amounting to War Declaration
(Bloomberg) -- Lebanon accused Israel of attacking an area near its border with Syria and dispatching drones into the capital and said such incidents amounted to a “declaration of war.” Israel has not claimed the attacks, the first such escalation in years between two countries that have fought multiple conflicts.
President Michel Aoun said on Twitter the incidents were a violation of UN Security Council resolution 1701 and such action allows Lebanon to defend its sovereignty. Prime Minister Saad Hariri told a group of envoys of the five permanent members of the Security Council that his government seeks to avoid a “dangerous escalation”. Lebanon will lodge complaint at the UN.
Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group vowed to respond to what it said were two Israeli drones crashing into its stronghold in Beirut over the weekend and said that one of the aircraft sought to attack a target there.
“We will defend our skies with what we can and the enemy has imposed a new phase upon us,” Hezbollah chief Hasan Nasrallah said in a televised speech Sunday.
Nasrallah said an Israeli airstrike in the Syrian capital Damascus killed two of its members a day before the drones incident. Local media said Israel also struck a base belonging to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command in the Bekaa Valley near the border with Syria.
Lebanon and Israel have been technically in a state of war for decades. In 2006, Hezbollah and Israel fought a 34-day conflict that killed 1,200 Lebanese and 165 Israelis. Tensions between Israel and Iran have also been escalating over Iranian entrenchment in Syria, where it has been fighting, largely through Hezbollah, to prop up President Bashar al-Assad. Israeli officials have repeatedly said they consider Hezbollah, a Shi’ite Muslim political and military organization with an arsenal Israel estimates at more than 100,000 missiles, to be a major threat.
Israel said earlier Monday that it took out “killer drones” in Syria that Iran had prepped to attack its territory. The Jewish state has repeatedly hit Iranian and Hezbollah targets in Syria, saying it would not allow Iran to expand its presence in the war-torn country nor let Hezbollah grow its arsenal.
“We can’t know if this will deteriorate into a real war between Israel and Iran,” said Yaakov Amidror, a former Israeli national security adviser and a major general in the reserves. “But we are taking that into account, and if that is the price we pay for stopping the Iranians from building their independent war machine in Syria -- we should pay the price.”
Expanding its Range
Israel’s drone activity over Lebanon is not new as the Jewish state flies surveillance planes there on a regular basis. Israeli website Ynet said that according to published photographs, the unmanned aircraft that exploded in Lebanon were manufactured in Iran, not Israel.
“Israel is trying to test the viability of extending its drone attacks program to include Lebanon if necessary,” Ayham Kamel, head of Middle East and North Africa research at Eurasia Group, said. “Israel is trying to explore to what extent they can change the rules of engagement.”
While the escalation raises the prospect of a confrontation between Israel and Iran, via Hezbollah, it comes at a bad time for the Iranians, who are facing tightening U.S. sanctions over their nuclear program.
“The timing of a possible confrontation is not in their favor and they don’t want it,” Sami Nader, head of the Beirut-based Levant Institute, said.
--With assistance from Samer Khalil Al-Atrush.
To contact the reporters on this story: Dana Khraiche in Beirut at dkhraiche@bloomberg.net;Gwen Ackerman in Jerusalem at gackerman@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Lin Noueihed at lnoueihed@bloomberg.net;Riad Hamade at rhamade@bloomberg.net
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