BEIRUT — The Amal Movement and Hezbollah issued a joint statement Monday adressing the situation in the occupied Palestinian territories and the “threat to Al-Aqsa mosque.”
In the statement, the two refrained from commenting on the thirty rockets fired from Lebanon towards Israel Thursday and the Israeli pre-dawn retaliatory attacks Friday on southern Lebanon.
The meeting between Hezbollah and Amal “discussed the situation in the occupied Palestinian territories and the threat to Al-Aqsa Mosque, stressing the need to support Jerusalem and the valiant resistance,” according to statement.
The rocket fires from south Lebanon had come a day after Israeli police stormed the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, the third holiest site in Islam, to dislodge Palestinians who had barricaded themselves there.
In response to the rocket fire, Israel launched airstrikes on Friday before dawn on south Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, saying it was targeting positions of the Palestinian movement Hamas. The air raids began shortly before midnight in Gaza and lasted several hours, while the bombing of southern Lebanon was brief and occurred around 4 am (local time) Friday. The Israeli army claimed to have stricken three "infrastructure" targets belonging to Hamas in the Rashidieh area, where there is a Palestinian refugee camp, near Sour.
Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah announced last Friday that he would refrain from commenting on "what happened in southern Lebanon," and that he will address these developments in a speech scheduled for next Friday.
Hamas's political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh visited Beirut last week and met with Nasrallah Sunday. The pair discussed "the readiness of the axis of resistance" and cooperation between its members in the face of recent developments, a Hezbollah statement said.
Reporting contributed by Muntasser Abdallah