A social media campaign telling Israelis to prepare their bomb shelters was rocketing across the Internet Monday, threatening Hezbollah retaliation following the killing of several of its operatives the previous day.
At least six Hezbollah members, including senior commander Jihad Mughniyeh, were killed in a reported Israeli helicopter strike in the Syrian Golan Heights on Sunday, according to sources close to the terror group. Another six Iranians were reportedly killed in the same strike.
Israel has maintained silence on its involvement in the attack.
But since Sunday night, the new hashtag “prepare your bomb shelters,” launched by Lebanese activists, has reached more than 12 million people, the movement’s news channel Al-Manar reported.
Pro-Hezbollah daily As-Safir quoted sources close to the movement Monday, saying that Hezbollah’s retaliation will be significant, but will not amount to all-out war.
An Israeli expert on Iran said he was doubtful the Islamic Republic would retaliate immediately against Israel for the killing of six members of the Republican Guard, including General Mohammad Ali Allahdadi, who formerly headed the groups activities in the province of Yazd.
“The Iranians usually don’t retaliate directly,” Raz Zimmt, who researches Iranian politics at Tel Aviv University’s Alliance Center for Iranian Studies, told The Times of Israel. “Hezbollah and Iran’s interest at the moment is to avoid escalation that will bring about all-out confrontation at the border. Hezbollah is in over its head in Syria, and Iran has invested tremendous resources in Syria and Iraq. The last thing it needs is a war with Israel.”
Zimmt said the more likely response would be a pinpoint attack along Israel’s border with Israel, or an attack against Israeli or Jewish targets abroad.
“They have to retaliate somehow,” he concluded. “They will need to balance the need to respond with their wish not to be dragged into all-out war.”
Lebanon is bracing for an attack from Israel if the Iranian-backed Hezbollah retaliates for an Israeli military helicopter strike last week on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights.
The attack killed five Hezbollah fighters, including Jihad Imad Muganiyeh, 25, the son of Imad Muganiyeh, a top Hezbollah commander who was killed reportedly by Israelis in Syria in 2008.
There’s “lots of security and uniformed guys talking into their radios,” one resident in south Beirut – the Hezbollah stronghold – told WND.
“People seem understandably nervous and some fear a repeat of July 2006, or worse,” he said.
In July 2006, Hezbollah and Israel waged a 34-day war that resulted in Israeli forces finally withdrawing from Lebanon but not before considerable damage had been caused the country.
Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah already has indicated that his resistance group will retaliate for the death of Mughniyeh, 25, and the five Hezbollah fighters.
Now, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps reports that a sixth person was killed, Gen. Muhammad Ali Allahdadi.
Israel claims the Hezbollah team with the IRGC general was planning an attack on the Israeli portion of the Golan.
Nasrallah said that despite Hezbollah’s preoccupations, it has sufficient military power to confront Israel.
He acknowledged for the first time that Hezbollah has acquired the Iranian-produced Fateh 110 missile, a surface-to-surface solid propellant missile. With a range of up to 300 kilometers, or 186 miles, it is capable of reaching any target in Israel.
He added that Hezbollah also has weaponry “much more sophisticated” than the Fatah 110 but didn’t elaborate.
Israel in the past has launched attacks into Syria ostensibly to destroy Iranian delivery of the missiles to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Nasrallah said Hezbollah will not tolerate Israeli assaults, adding that it considers land, sea and aerial violations besides the killings of its fighters as “red lines” that “cannot be surpassed by the Zionists.”
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