The Lebanese capital is currently bracing for Hezbollah’s expected response to Sunday’s Israeli drone attack on the southern suburbs of Beirut near the party’s media center.
“Hezbollah’s specialized teams are working on determining the target of Israel was seeking to attack and the location from where the aircraft were launched from, especially since such drones can only fly short distances of 4 kilometers at most,” an informed ministerial source told Asharq Al-Awsat.
The source said the drones could have been launched from a jet and remotely operated by the Israeli military.
It also did not rule out the possibility that the drones may have been fired by sleeper cells located in Beirut’s Moawad area where the aircraft crashed.
They may have also been fired by Israeli warships that may have infiltrated Lebanon’s territorial waters undetected by radar.
Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah threatened Sunday that his party will not allow such aggression against Lebanon.
On Monday, an Israeli drone attacked a base for a Syrian-backed group known as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command (PFLP-GC), an ally of Hezbollah, in eastern Lebanon near the border with Syria.
Beirut has lodged a complaint to the United Nations Security Council over the attacks.
President Michel Aoun declared Monday that Lebanon reserves the right to defend itself.
“What happened is a declaration of war that allows us to resort to our right to defend our sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity,” he said after holding talks with UN Special Representative in Lebanon Jan Kubis.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Saad Hariri met with the ambassadors and deputy heads of mission of the five permanent members of the Security Council at the Grand Serail in Beirut to discuss the latest developments.
The government wants to avoid escalation, “but this requires the international community to prove its rejection of this flagrant violation of our sovereignty and of resolution 1701,” he said.
