Israel sent de-escalation message to Hezbollah via Moscow – report

Israel sent a message of de-escalation to Hezbollah in Lebanon via Moscow, Kuwaiti news outlet Al Jarida reported on Friday quoting an unnamed source.

This comes following a death of a Hezbollah official in Syria, whom the Lebanese terror organization accused Israel of killing in an airstrike earlier this week.

On Tuesday, July 21, the Lebanese Hezbollah terrorist movement announced that the Hezbollah official, Ali Kamel Mohsen, was killed by an Israeli airstrike that struck near Damascus, which also killed several Iranian and Syrian personal.

Following the attack the Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar reported that Hezbollah raised its alert level to “monitor activities of IDF soldiers” along the border between the two countries. They also reported statements attributed to Hezbollah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah suggesting that Israel should be wary of an attack.

On the Israeli side, the IDF also raised its alert expecting a limited response against military targets, and military defense was strengthened along Northern Command’s Galilee Division amid heightened tensions.

The Al Jarida source also claimed that Israel “takes seriously” a response from Lebanon following Nasrallah’s announcement, and this is the reason why Israelis has refrained from responding to Nasrallah with attacks attributed to Israel.

Contrary to Israeli statements, the source claimed that fighters from the Lebanese terrorist organization were not harmed in the dozens of attacks attributed to Israel since the brief confrontation that took place between the two countries in September of last year.

An additional source told Al Jarida that Hezbollah’s response to the attack will be calculated, and would arrive at a place and time that Israel would be able to contain, in order to avoid escalation in the area.

While several Hezbollah members have been killed in alleged Israeli airstrikes in Syria over the past year, it was the first time that Hezbollah confirmed the death of one of them since August when two terrorists and an Iranian were killed in an IAF strike targeting an IRGC cell that Israel said was on its way to launch armed drones to attack targets in northern Israel.

Anna Ahronheim contributed to this report.