The chief of Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement has warned Israel against continuing strikes in Syria targeting mainly Iranian positions, saying it could fuel war in the region.
Addressing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu directly, Hassan Nasrallah on Saturday said in an interview with al-Mayadeen television: “Don’t make an error of judgment and don’t lead the region towards war or a major clash.”
“At any moment the Syrian leadership and the axis of resistance can take a decision to deal with the Israeli aggression in a different manner," Nasrallah said, referring to the alliance between Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government, Iran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah.
Israel has said the first strikes targeted mainly facilities it claimed belonged to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force.
It said they were in response to a medium-range, surface-to-surface missile the Quds Force fired from Syria at the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on Sunday, which Israeli air defences intercepted.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said 21 people had been killed in the strikes, the majority of them Iranians.
The Israeli army has since 2013 claimed hundreds of attacks on what it says are Iranian military targets and advanced arms deliveries to Hezbollah, with the goal of stopping its main enemy Iran from entrenching itself militarily in neighbouring Syria.
Israel has warned it will continue to target positions in Syria held by Iran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah.
