Hezbollah has evacuated its bases in southern and eastern Lebanon after Israel threatened retaliation for its deadly attack on the Golan Heights, a source close to Hezbollah said on Sunday.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Galant has vowed to “strike hard on the enemy” a day after a rocket attack from Lebanon killed 12 young men in Majdal Shams, once again raising fears that the war will spread to Gaza.
Israel blamed Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement for firing the Falaq-1 Iranian rocket, but the Iran-backed group – which regularly targets Israeli military targets – said it had “no connection” to the incident.
“Hezbollah has evacuated some locations in the south and the Bekaa Valley that it thinks could be targets for Israel,” a source close to the group told AFP, requesting anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Hezbollah has a strong presence in eastern Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, which borders Syria, and in southern Lebanon, where it has been carrying out almost daily attacks on Israeli targets in support of its ally Hamas since October.
Cross-border firing has been largely confined to the border area, but Israel has carried out repeated attacks deep inside Lebanon, including at night.
Hezbollah is also deployed in Syria, where it has been fighting for years in support of President Bashar al-Assad in the country’s civil war.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor, said fighters affiliated with pro-Iran groups and Hezbollah had “evacuated their positions” from the Damascus countryside south of the capital as well as parts of the Syrian-controlled Golan Heights amid fears of “possible Israeli air strikes.”
Hezbollah abandoned its bases in Syria in early June following the Israeli raids, according to the Britain-based Observatory, which relies on a network of sources inside Syria.
Since Syria’s civil war began in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in the country, mainly targeting army bases and Iran-backed militias including Hezbollah.
These raids also aim to cut Hezbollah’s supply routes into Lebanon.
Israeli officials rarely comment on individual attacks in Syria, but they have repeatedly said they will not allow their arch-enemy Iran to expand its presence there.
The war broke out in the Gaza Strip after an attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel on October 7, followed by Israeli attacks on Syria, then eased after an Israeli attack on the Iranian consulate building in Damascus on April 1.
The attack prompted Iran’s first direct missile and drone attacks against Israel on April 13–14, greatly increasing regional tensions.
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