Hezbollah is increasing the frequency of internal meetings in preparation for a possible war with Israel, according to a report by Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya, amid assessments that Iran is pressuring the group to join any military campaign launched against it.
Sources cited by the network said that, “by all indications,” the Israeli airstrikes carried out Friday in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley were a prelude to a broader Israeli military operation that could coincide with strikes in Iran.
IDF strike in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley
(Video: IDF)
The report quoted sources close to Hezbollah who told Al-Arabiya and the Saudi channel Al-Hadath that the group is currently being directed not by Lebanese leaders but by officers from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. Some of the Iranian officers had already been stationed in Lebanon, while others reportedly arrived recently following intensified discussion of a possible U.S. military strike against Iran.
According to the sources, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard officers are not only responsible for restoring Hezbollah’s operational capabilities but are personally overseeing plans and meeting with Hezbollah teams in various regions to issue instructions. The report said the Iranian officers also met with members of the missile unit targeted in Friday’s strike in the Bekaa region.
The sources added: “An Israeli military attack against Hezbollah is inevitable and is only a matter of timing.”
Mahmoud Qamati, a member of Hezbollah’s political council, said Saturday: “Our choice will remain resistance, even if today we show patience. Has the state become convinced that diplomacy and international relations are useless? Our prisoners will not remain in jails and the occupation of our land will not continue.”
Separately, the military confirmed Saturday that there were fatalities in the strikes carried out Friday in the Bekaa Valley. A military spokesperson said forces eliminated “a large number” of terrorists affiliated with Hezbollah’s missile array at three separate command centers.
Lebanese reports said at least 10 people were killed in the strikes, eight of them Hezbollah members.
According to the military, the terrorists were planning to deploy rocket and missile launchers. Fighter jets approached covertly and simultaneously dropped six bombs on the three command centers.
In an unusual move, Hezbollah issued official statements announcing the deaths of its operatives. The organization has refrained for an extended period from formally publishing notices of casualties within its ranks.
Among those killed was “the fighting commander Hussein Mohammed Yaghi, known as Abu Ali Sadeq, born in 1984 in the city of Baalbek, who was killed defending Lebanon and its people as a result of an Israeli strike on the Bekaa region,” according to Hezbollah’s statement.
The other names published were Qassem Ali Mahdi, Ahmad Hussein al-Hajj Hassan, Hussein Khairallah Alaa al-Din, Ali Zeid al-Moussawi, Mohammed Ibrahim al-Moussawi and Ahmad Mohammed Zeaiter.