Israel in ‘fear’ after Hezbollah fighter killed in Damascus

Israeli media say the occupied territories are overwhelmed by “fear and alertness” about the possibility of a retaliatory attack by Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement after the popular organization announced the martyrdom of one of its members in a recent Israeli aggression on the Syrian soil.

Hezbollah said in a statement on Tuesday that one of its members, Ali Kamel Mohsen, had been killed the night before during an Israeli attack near the Syrian capital of Damascus.

Syria’s state television said late on Monday that the Syrian air defenses had successfully intercepted a new Israeli aggression above Damascus and the capital city’s International Airport.

The Israeli missiles flew over the Syrian Golan Heights where they conducted raids around the capital, according to a Syrian military spokesman, and that the Syrian air defenses thwarted most of the missiles before reaching their targets and inflicted only “material losses.”

Syria’s official news agency SANA said the Israeli attack wounded at least seven Syrian troops. The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) put the number of fatalities at five.

After the Lebanese resistance movement mourned the martyrdom of Mohsen on Tuesday, Israeli media reported that there was “fear and alertness in Israel of Hezbollah’s response.”

Hezbollah had vowed in the past to retaliate for any of its members that were killed by Israeli forces in Syria. The resistance group fired a barrage of anti-tank missiles into the occupied territories in September last year after two of its fighters embraced martyrdom in an Israeli aggression near Damascus.

Syria has been gripped by foreign-backed militancy since March 2011. The Syrian government says the Israeli regime and its Western and regional allies are aiding Takfiri terrorist groups that are wreaking havoc in the country.

Israel frequently targets military positions inside Syria, especially those of Hezbollah which has played a key role in helping the Syrian army in its fight against terrorists.

The Tel Aviv regime mostly keeps quiet about the attacks on Syrian territories which many view as knee-jerk reaction to Syrian government’s increasing success in confronting terrorism in country.

Israel has been a main supporter of terrorist groups that have opposed the government of President Bashar al-Assad since militancy erupted in Syria nine years ago.