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Terrorist attacks are unacceptable no matter who carries them out, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has saidNetanyahu goes to Wa(r)shington, and shortly after the situation somehow intensifies. What to say?
Russia condemns terrorism conducted by any entity, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said, reacting to a new escalation on the Israeli-Lebanese border.
Israel accused Lebanon-based Islamist group Hezbollah on Saturday of launching a rocket tha landed on a soccer field in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, which killed at least 12 teenagers and children, mostly of Syrian Druze origin, and wounded about 20 others. The group has denied involvement in the attack.
An earlier Israeli airstrike on southern Lebanon reportedly killed three Hezbollah members.
Commenting on the latest escalation across the border, Lavrov told reporters on Sunday that Russia "condemns all terrorist actions by any entity," recalling that Moscow equally condemned the October 7 Hamas attack on Israeli civilians and Israel's retaliation, which he said was a "flagrant violation of international humanitarian law" because it amounted to "collective punishment of the people."
The strategically important Golan Heights were seized from Syria in the 1967 Six Day war and later unilaterally annexed by Israel - a move that is still not recognized by most of the international community.
In response to the soccer field attack, the Israel Defense Forces said it had conducted strikes on "a series of Hezbollah terror targets... both deep inside Lebanese territory and in southern Lebanon."
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An unnamed US official told CBS News that the recent escalation was "almost all-out war." Other sources told the outlet that it was a "nightmare scenario" feared by the White House, which was attempting to de-escalate the crisis and contain the fallout.
A Tamir missile launched from a nearby position is likely to contain a substantial amount of fuel, as the air defense rocket was designed to fly for around 70 km. This means that the majority of the fuel meant for the missile's flight after take-off detonated and produced the fireball seen in the video.
Despite Israeli assertions of a Hezbollah attack using a Falaq-1 rocket, substantial analysis points towards a malfunctioning Israeli Tamir interceptor missile as the more plausible cause of the explosion. The discrepancies in crater size, the nature of the explosion, and Hezbollah's historical targeting patterns all support this alternative explanation. The true story behind the Majdal Shams explosion remains shrouded, but the evidence presented here offers a compelling case for reconsidering the initial narrative.
Netanyahu goes to Wa(r)shington, and shortly after the situation somehow intensifies. What to say?Bibi gained permission from the Delaware Dimwits to wage all out war !
Best guess is Israel had good intel on the location of a Hezbollah commander and used this as an excuse to take him out. They simply do not care how many civilians are killed or wounded by such operations.
So far Hezbollah and Iran have been unwilling to respond at the same level. Probably because they don't want to kill civilians, and also because they know that if/when they do so respond "Israel" will escalate yet again.