Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cut short a visit to Greece and flew home Friday as Lebanon’s Hezbollah demanded revenge for the killing of a top Iranian commander in a US strike.
A source in Netanyahu’s office said that the premier was returning from Athens but did not elaborate. Following Friday morning’s killing of Major General Qasem Soleimani, Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement called for the missile strike by Israel’s closest ally, to be avenged.
“Meting out the appropriate punishment to these criminal assassins...Will be the responsibility and task of all resistance fighters worldwide,” Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said in a statement.
The Israeli army on Friday closed a ski resort in the annexed Golan Heights, which border Lebanon and Syria. “Following a security assessment, it was decided to close Mount Hermon to visitors today,” an army spokeswoman said.
“There are no further instructions for civilians in the area.” The ski resort on Mount Hermon lies in the Israeli-occupied part of the Golan Heights, which Israel seized from Syria in the Six-Day War of 1967 and later annexed in a move still not recognised by most of the international community. Across the armistice line sits the Shiite Hezbollah, Israel’s bitter foe with which it fought in 2006.