Residents of Damascus celebrate the victory of Islamist rebels who took the Syrian capital after a lightning offensive. (Credit: Bakr Al-Kassem/AFP)
In a statement released overnight, Hezbollah condemned the Israeli offensive on the Golan Heights in Syria as well as its strikes on Syrian military infrastructure – "nearly 310" since Sunday morning according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR). These operations took place shortly after the announcement of the fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime, at the end of a lightning offensive launched just after the signing of a cease-fire ending the clashes between the Israeli army and the party in Lebanon.
"The persistent crimes committed by the Zionist enemy on Syrian territory, whether by occupying more lands in the Golan Heights or by striking and destroying the defense capabilities of the Syrian state, constitute a blatant aggression and a shameless violation of the sovereignty of the Syrian state and people, as well as an attempt to destabilize this brotherly country," the statement read.
"This aggressive occupation of Syrian territories comes at a time when the Zionist army continues its aggression against Lebanon and its daily violations and attacks against Gaza," the party further stressed, calling for rejecting and confronting this aggression.
"We call on the world, especially the Arab and Islamic worlds, to take firm positions against these crimes and to exert pressure in all political and legal fields to end this series of attacks, because all the justifications put forward by the enemy are false claims," Hezbollah continued, judging that all Israeli actions in the Golan since 1967 could only be described as occupation. It finally called for preserving the unity of the Syrian territory.
The Israeli army "has destroyed the main military sites in Syria" by carrying out more than 300 strikes against Syrian territory since the capture of Damascus by the rebels and the fall of President Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said on Tuesday, quoted by AFP.