Israel intensifies pressure on Lebanese Hezbollah from the Syrian side, trying to build a united front linking southern Syria to southern Lebanon. This is what emerges from the Israeli military maneuvers on the two theatres, Syrian and Lebanese, increasingly connected in a single offensive arc that runs from the Mediterranean coast towards the Bekaa, passing through the Golan and Anti-Lebanon. The epicenter of these maneuvers is a Syrian locality, Beit Jinn, only apparently remote but strategically important in strengthening the Israeli occupation of south-west Syria, just twenty kilometers as the crow flies from the capital Damascus. From Damascus, some Arab ambassadors accredited in Syria went to Beit Jinn, accompanied by a delegate from the Syrian Foreign Ministry, to offer condolences to the families of the thirteen civilians killed, according to the official media, by Israeli bombing in the area. The raids occurred last Friday after a patrol of soldiers wearing the insignia of the Jewish State entered the area deep in Syrian territory. For the second time since the expansion of the Israeli occupation in the Golan Heights a year ago, unspecified gunmen opened fire on soldiers, wounding six, three of them in serious condition, according to Israeli media. The retaliation was immediate: Israeli drones and jets hit Beit Jinn, causing “panic and death”, according to Syrian media. Thirteen civilians remained on the ground, lifeless, medical sources in Damascus report.
Israel had accused the Sunni group Jamaa Islamiya of being behind the attack on the military. But Jamaa Islamiya, which in the past has been associated with Shiite Hezbollah and which dominates the local scene in Beit Jinn, has denied any involvement. The Beit Jinn operation comes at a delicate stage: after the Israeli raid on Beirut in which a senior Hezbollah leader was killed last week, the deadline of the ultimatum set by the United States and Israel for Lebanon to present concrete steps on the withdrawal of the Shiite party’s weapons is approaching. In this sense, the Israeli offensive could aim to use Syrian territory, effectively open to any Israeli incursion, to encircle Hezbollah, perched in the Bekaa valley, reachable from Beit Jinn. Meanwhile, Lebanon continues to suffer growing political pressure: the United States ties any future financial and military support to the withdrawal of Hezbollah’s weapons. A meeting in Paris between the American emissary Morgan Ortagus, the advisor to French President Emmanuel Macron, Anne-Claire Legendre, and the Saudi envoy Yazid ben Farhane will precede Ortagus’s visit to Beirut next week, during which the plan to disarm the Lebanese army will be discussed.