Fears mounted in Lebanon over a possible Iranian retaliation from the south of the country, after Tehran vowed to respond to the killing of two Revolutionary Guards officers in Syria following an Israeli raid.
On Tuesday, the IRGC announced the death of two of its officers in an Israeli bombardment targeting sites near Damascus at dawn on Monday, threatening that Israel would pay “the price for its crime.”
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported that the bombing targeted “at least a warehouse of weapons and ammunition belonging to Iranian fighters” in the vicinity of Damascus International Airport, and led to the killing of “two fighters loyal to Iran.”
Following Iran’s announcement, concerns mounted over the possibility that Tehran would use the Lebanese southern front to respond to the Israeli strike.
Some Lebanese expressed their fears of the outbreak of a confrontation, given Hezbollah’s ties with Tehran, and the party’s previous declaration of “the unity of the fronts.”
However, Makram Rabah, a researcher in history and conflicts, downplayed the importance of these concerns, telling Asharq Al-Awsat that the party was involved in the fighting in Syria, and was exposed to the Israeli night strikes that also target Iranian-affiliated militias.
Rabah said that a direct confrontation in southern Lebanon was unlikely, “because Israeli raids on Iranian militias have been ongoing for years, and despite the threats of the Revolutionary Guards, they did not trigger tensions in Lebanon’s southern front.”
Iran is a key ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and has provided political, economic and military support to Damascus since the outbreak of the war in 2011. While Tehran claims that members of its armed forces were in Syria on advisory missions, Hezbollah emphasizes the unity of fronts from Syria to southern Lebanon.
The nuclear talks in Vienna prevent Hezbollah from responding from southern Lebanon, according to Rabah, who said that Iran “does not want the military response to affect the negotiation process.”
He continued: “Hezbollah does not care about the Lebanese economy and security, but at this very moment, it sees the priority in the Iranian project and the success of negotiations that will give Tehran the ability to sell oil to the West if the confrontation in Ukraine continues.”
