The Israeli Air Force struck a "terrorist" target 7 kilometers south of Beirut early on Friday morning, the IDF said in a statement.
The airstrike was carried out in response to four rockets being fired from Lebanon into northern Israel on Thursday.
"Yesterday’s attack is a blatant breach on Israeli sovereignty that jeopardized Israeli civilian life. Israel will not tolerate terrorist aggression originating from Lebanese territory," the IDF said in a statement.
The IDF Spokesman Brig-Gen. Yoav Mordechai said that the Israel Air Force struck targets a few kilometers from Beirut, and that "echoes of the blasts could be heard in Beirut."
Israel said it holds the Lebanese government responsible for the rocket fire that occurred on Thursday, even though a Sunni group called the Abdallah al-Azzam Brigades claimed responsibility for the rockets earlier on Thursday.
Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon held a consultation with IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz on Friday following the rockets fire and the IAF strike in response to it.
"The state of Israel sees the Lebanese government as responsible to what happens in its territory and will not allow any firing or provocation at it," he said. "We will not allow anyone to disrupt the lives of our civilians."
A Palestinian terror group in Lebanon, which was apparently the target ofIAF strikes early Friday morning in response to rocket fire in northern Israel Thursday, expressed surprise at the raid, given that a Sunni, al-Qaeda-inspired group claimed responsibility for the rocket attack.
A spokesman for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC) promised retaliation against Israel. “The Zionist enemy will not drag us into responding. It will come at the right time, in the right place.”
According to the Israeli military, the pilots reported a pinpoint strike early Friday on terrorist targets near the coastal town of al-Naameh, 15 kilometers south of the Lebanese capital. It was the first air raid on the area since the 2006 war between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah terror group.
The Lebanese media reported that the Israeli navy was also involved in the retaliation, alleging that one of the missiles that struck the site came from a navy boat.
The site of the attack was confirmed by the PFLP-GC, headed by Ahmed Jibril, a staunch supporter of Syrian President Bashar Assad, a Hezbollah ally and an Iranian proxy.
Guerrilla fighters trained by the West began moving towards Damascus in mid-August, French newspaper Le Figaroreported on Thursday.
Le Figaro reported that this is the reason behind the Assad regime's alleged chemical weapons attack in Damascus on Wednesday morning, as UN inspectors were allowed into the country to investigate allegations of WMD use.
The rebels were trained for several months in a training camp on the Jordanian-Syrian border by CIA operatives, as well as Jordanian and Israeli commandos, the paper said.
The paper quoted a researcher at the French Institute for Strategic Analysis as saying the trained rebels group was passing through Ghouta, on their way to Damascus.
The US is now facing a "more abbreviate time frame" to reach a decision on an American response to the escalating situations in Syria and Egypt, US President Barack Obama said on CNN's New Day in an interview that aired on Friday.
While UN officials were in Damascus to investigate allegations of chemical weapons use, Obama said he was not optimistic the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad would be cooperative.
He warned, however, that the United States' "core national interests" are involved in the Syrian conflict, "both in terms of us making sure that weapons of mass destruction are not proliferating, as well as needing to protect our allies, our bases in the region."
He also asserted that the US cannot intervene militarily in Syria without support from the UN, and that the US needs to "try to work within an international framework to do everything we can to see Assad ousted."
"If the US goes in and attacks another country without a UN mandate and without clear evidence that can be presented, then there are questions in terms of whether international law supports it," he told CNN's Chris Cuomo.
Here’s a short, random list of some of the major events that occurred in the Middle East just this past week: Hundreds of Syrians werekilled in a chemical warfare attack in the suburbs of Damascus (the exact number is unknown, though the Syrian opposition counted over 1,300); 25 Egyptian police officers in civilian clothes were massacred in Sinai as they proceeded toward one of the military bases in the peninsula; a court in Cairo announced former president Hosni Mubarak’s release from prison while Mohammed Badie, the supreme guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, was arrested by Egyptian authorities and 38 prisoners suffocated to death in an Egyptian jail; four rockets were fired from south Lebanon into northern Israel, one of them intercepted by Iron Dome, prompting an Israeli airstrike in response; Syrian missiles fell on the Lebanese town of Harmel, a well-known Hezbollah stronghold; dozens were killed in Iraq in a series of terror attacks… and the list goes on.
The Middle East did not take a break for the summer; it didn’t even slow down to catch its breath. The summer heat seemed to have peaked violence and bloodshed, with each week bringing more viciousness than the incomprehensible levels of violence of the week before.
As a fragile calm settled on Cairo, the number of violent clashes in Sinai was on the rise. Thirty-five shooting incidents between the Egyptian army and Jihadist armed forces were reported in the past week alone. Since the Muslim Brotherhood’s regime fell, 120 soldiers and Jihadists were killed in Sinai. This number includes the 25 Egyptian soldiers who were executed early this week by armed extremists in northeastern Sinai.
Currently, 15 major terrorist groups operate in Sinai, each affiliated with global Jihad — al-Qaeda-style ideology — to some extent. The number of soldiers among these semi-tribal militant forces is estimated at several hundred, though when the number of supporters is taken into account, the estimates reach thousands of people who are involved in Jihadist efforts in Sinai.
Four of the 15 groups are considered the most dominant: The first is Ansar Beit al-Maqdes, a primarily Barikat organization; the second is Majlis Shura al-Mujahideen; the third is Jaysh al-Islām, the most long-standing group based in the Gaza Strip, with many branches throughout Egypt; and the fourth is al-Tawid, which is actually comprised of several smaller groups, some of which are well known in Egypt for their terrorist activity.
Each of these groups, without exception, is closely linked to terrorist activists in the Gaza Strip. What’s more, Egyptian and Israeli authorities are aware that several of the most dominant Jihadi activists in Sinai, including those who were involved in the attack against the army last year, are now hiding in Gaza with Hamas’s knowledge and consent.
Despite Hamas’s attempts to ignore the signals that it receives from Egypt and to keep a low profile, it has been working tirelessly to reignite terrorist activity in the West Bank. These should not be mistaken for signs of empowerment, as they are clearly indications of distress. Hamas has reached rock bottom both in Gaza and in the West Bank. Hamas’s attempts to incite terrorist activity in the West Bank are motivated by its struggle to restore its status as a central authority for the Palestinian people without risking clashes with the IDF in Gaza.
Increasing numbers of terror alerts have been piling up in the Shin Bet and Palestinian Authority security offices. Hamas activists in Gaza, particularly those who were released and sent to Gaza as part of the prisoner exchange deal for Gilad Shalit’s release in 2011, are now trying to establish a terrorist network to carry out terrorist attacks such as abducting Israelis, in order to disrupt the relative peace and quiet.
One of the leaders of this initiative is Hamas Interior Minister Fathi Hamad, who is responsible for coordinating the organization’s attempts to carry out attacks and abduct IDF soldiers. These attempts have so far been thwarted by the PA, and especially by the Shin Bet and the IDF. But the increasing number of threats and warnings make it difficult to ignore the likelihood of an eventual successful abduction or terrorist attack.
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