Israel attacks Palestinian base in Lebanon

Israeli jets have attacked a Palestinian base in eastern Lebanon near the border with Syria, according to Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency.

The report says there were three attacks early on Monday, minutes apart, that struck a base for a Syrian- backed group known as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP-GC), an ally of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group.

There was no immediate comment from Israel on the strike, which the agency said hit near the Lebanese village of Qusaya in the eastern Bekaa Valley.

According to Aljazeera, air raids by Israel against Palestinian factions in Lebanon, such as this one, have been rare in the past years.

Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr, reporting from Beirut, said the attack against the PFLP-GC base took place near the border with Syria, in very “rugged terrain”.

“It’s [the area] believed to be made up of tunnels, linking both countries together,” Khodr said.

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The attack comes amid heightened regional tensions and a day after alleged Israeli drones crashed in the southern suburb of Beirut, prompting a strong reaction from the leader of Hezbollah movement.

In a speech hours after one of the drones crashed in the Lebanese capital, Hassan Nasrallah said the Israeli drones were on a “suicide mission”.

“Hezbollah will not allow such aggression,” he said in a televised address on Sunday. “The time when Israeli aircraft come and bombard parts of Lebanon is over.”

Nasrallah also pledged to retaliate to an Israeli air attack inside Syria that took place late on Saturday, which he said killed two Hezbollah members.

Later on Sunday, Iraq‘s powerful Hashd al-Shaabi force, or Popular Mobilisation Forces(PMF), blamed Israel for carrying out a deadly drone attack close to the border with Syria.

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The PMF is mostly comprised of Shia Muslim fighters and has received Iranian training and advice, but operates officially under Iraq’s armed forces and uses military unit names.

Israel has carried out hundreds of attacks against Iranian forces and their allies in neighboring Syria since the beginning of the country’s civil war in 2011, saying it won’t tolerate a permanent Iranian presence there or the transfer of advanced weapons to the Hezbollah movement.

Al Jazeera’s Khodr said the latest attack is a message to Hezbollah more than the PFLP-GC command since it came “just hours” after Nasrallah pledged to down any Israeli drone that violates Lebanese airspace.

Hezbollah and Israel fought a month-long war in 2006. The volatile border between the two countries, which remain technically in a state of war, has been mostly calm since that conflict.