Hezbollah targets Israeli troops on Lebanon border

The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah attacked an Israeli armored vehicle with a roadside bomb along the border Monday and Israel responded with artillery fire.

“At 3:10pm, the Samir Kantar Martyr Group in the Islamic Resistance exploded a big IED on the Zibdin-Kafra road in the occupied Shebaa Farms area against a patrol of Israeli vehicles”, said the statement.

“The need of the time is to maintain security vigil and to exercise utmost restraint against any provocation”, UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) Commander Major-General Luciano Portolano said, noting that UNIFIL has further reinforced its presence on the ground and intensified patrols across the area of operations in coordination with the Lebanese army.

“The Israelis are anxious and they should be anxious – along the border, inside Israel and outside of it”, said Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah to Naharnet Dec. 27, “the Israelis are hiding like rats along the border”.

“The retaliation to Samir’s assassination will inevitably come”.

Kuntar was released from an Israeli jail in 2008 in exchange for the bodies of Israeli soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) expressed concern that the bad weather and low visibility conditions in the border area could give Hezbollah an opportunity to strike. Following his release, Kuntar was welcomed home as a hero by the militant group and given a position within the organisation.

“The reply to the killing of Kantar is coming”, Nasrallah said after the killing.

“Whatever are the consequences and threats – which we don’t fear – we can’t tolerate and forgive those who shed the blood of our fighters and brothers”, he said in a speech aired by Al Manar.

Lebanese Shia group says explosion in contested Shebaa Farms area was to avenge killing of operative Samir Kantar.

In 2006, Israel fought a war against Hezbollah that killed more than 1,200 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians, and some 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers.

Hezbollah is fighting on the side of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria’s war. Some of the strikes by jets and attack helicopters have hit convoys suspected to be transporting weapons to Hizbollah.