Lebanon said an Israeli strike on Friday cut off the main international road to Syria after Israel said Hezbollah was transporting weapons through the tiny Mediterranean country’s principal land border crossing.
The strike, which Israel has not commented on, comes after 310,000 people, mostly Syrians, have in recent days fled the war putting Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon for relative safety in neighbouring Syria.
It follows an intense night of bombardment of Hezbollah’s main bastion in the southern suburbs of Beirut, with a US news website saying Israel targeted the militant group’s potential successor just a week after it killed its leader, Hassan Nasrallah.
The escalating assaults by Israel come as it weighs retaliation for Hezbollah backer Iran’s missile attack.
President Joe Biden said on Thursday that the United States was “discussing” possible Israeli strikes on Iranian oil facilities, in comments that sent oil prices spiking five per cent.
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, will deliver a rare sermon on Friday, his first since his country’s missile attack on Israel, and also the first since Israel launched its wave of strikes on Hezbollah.
VANGUARD
