Israel strikes Hezbollah sites in Syria despite nearing truce in Lebanon

Observers expect continuation of wider regional air campaign aimed at defeating Iran-backed group

The aftermath of a reported Israeli strike in the Mazzeh district of Damascus this month. AFP

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Israeli warplanes struck areas in Syria near the border with Lebanon overnight, ahead of a ceasefire expected to be announced between Israel and Hezbollah. But observers said it was unlikely any truce in Lebanon would also extend to Israeli attacks on the group elsewhere in the region.

Israel has acknowledged carrying out hundreds of strikes in Syria in the past decade, saying it has attacked Iranian sites and allied groups, including Hezbollah. However, strikes on Syria have been more frequent since the Lebanese group started attacking Israel in support of Gaza in October last year, sparking the current cross-border war.

The latest strikes hit Qusayr, in western Syria, destroying infrastructure reportedly used by the Iran-backed group to transport weapons crucial to its 13-month fight with Israel, sources in the area say.

The attacks came a week after Israel conducted one of its biggest raids in an intensified air campaign aimed at curbing Iran's proxies in Syria. The strikes killed at least 36 people in compounds in Palmyra, a central desert area that forms a main part of a supply line from Iraq in the east to Qusayr in the west. Syrian state media described the dead as "martyrs", without specifying their identity.

"We can now say that almost all of the roads to Lebanon have been cut," said a resident of Qusayr.

Another source said several bridges and overpasses in Qusayr, leading to unofficial crossings with Lebanon, were hit, as well as the official Jousiya border crossing. Syrian state media said two civilians were injured in the attacks, while sources in the Syrian opposition to President Bashar Al Assad said the dead were two members of Hezbollah.

The value of Qusayr to Hezbollah rose after Israel, over the past two months, bombed areas in the adjacent Bekaa Valley, which is connected to southern Lebanon, the main theatre in the Israel-Hezbollah war.

A ceasefire agreement to end the war in Lebanon is expected to be announced on Tuesday, one senior Lebanese official said. Authorities in the US, which is brokering the deal, also expect an agreement but have warned it is not certain.

A European diplomat specialising in Syrian affairs said there was no expectation for Israeli operations in Syria to ease even if a ceasefire is reached in Lebanon. The diplomat said that, throughout the talks on the ceasefire, Israel "has been very reluctant to give up the right of preventive strike capabilities".

"Logically, this would be applied to Syria and even Iraq," the diplomat said.

Hezbollah poured reinforcements into Syria when authorities there launched a violent suppression of a peaceful protest movement that started in March 2011. The group has also supervised Shiite Iraqi militias sent by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to Syria at the same time.

By the end of the year, Syria was mired in civil war, with Hezbollah becoming the enforcer of Iran-controlled corridors crossing the country. These areas, Arab and western intelligence officials say, have become the backbone of Iranian weapons storage, assembly and development facilities geared to supply Iran's regional non-state allies.

Two military specialists in the Syrian opposition said the Palmyra attack has indicated that Israel's intention is to deepen its regional air campaign, a Lebanon ceasefire not withstanding.

"It is difficult to imagine that Israel will let Hezbollah and the other militias maintain military threat capabilities in Syria, and even in Iraq," one specialist said.