Beirut – Hezbollah supporters turned out in force on Monday to bury the son of the group’s late commander, one of six fighters who died in an Israeli air strike in neighboring Syria that also killed an Iranian general.
Subscribe to our Daily Roundup Email
The killings raised the possibility of a retaliatory attack, with a senior Iranian official suggesting that Israel would be hit at “the right time and right place”. An Israeli defense official said escalation was possible.
Jihad Mughniyeh was buried in Beirut alongside his father Imad Mughniyeh, who was assassinated in Damascus in 2008.
Though it was unclear what role Mughniyeh, who was in his mid-20s, played in Hezbollah, his death represented a symbolic blow to the Shi’ite Islamist group that his father helped to found with Iranian backing in the early 1980s.
It was the biggest Hezbollah funeral since Imad Mughniyeh’s own burial, underscoring Jihad’s significance to the movement.
Thousands of mourners chanted “Death to Israel” and “Death to America” as Mughniyeh’s coffin, draped in Hezbollah’s yellow flag, was carried through the streets of Beirut’s southern suburbs, an area controlled by the group.
A senior Hezbollah commander, Mohamad Issa, was also killed in Sunday’s helicopter strike in the Syrian province of Quneitra near the boundary with the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
The dead Iranian Revolutionary Guard officer was named as General Mohammad Allahdadi by Iranian media.
Israel has not officially commented on the hit, but an Israeli security source confirmed to Reuters that Israeli had carried it out. An Israeli defense official said escalation was “definitely possible… We’re bracing for that possibility.”
However, full-on war was unlikely.
“Scenarios could be a smaller-scale attack from the Golan, or from Lebanon, or on Israeli or Jewish targets abroad,” said the official, speaking to Reuters in Jerusalem on condition of anonymity because Israel is not acknowledging the strike.
{NewsPhotosEmbed 644117911}