Deadly Israeli strike deals painful blow to Hezbollah, Iran

BEIRUT – Beating their chests in anger and chanting “Death to Israel,” thousands of mourners marched Monday in a funeral procession for a prominent Hezbollah fighter killed with five other members of the Shiite militant group in an Israeli airstrike in Syria’s Golan Heights.

Tehran added to the combustible mix by announcing that the strike – neither confirmed nor denied by Israel – also killed a senior Iranian general, underscoring the extent of Iran and Hezbollah’s deep involvement in the volatile area on Israel’s doorstep.

Sunday’s deadly attack placed Hezbollah in a tough spot, as it weighs carefully how to respond. A significant retaliation risks drawing even tougher Israeli reprisals, plunging Lebanon into yet another crippling war with the Jewish state for which there is little appetite among Lebanese public opinion.

Stretched thin and neck-deep in Syria’s civil war where the group’s Shiite fighters are battling alongside President Bashar Assad’s forces, Hezbollah must also decide whether it can afford to open up another front with Israel.

Jihad Mughniyeh, who was buried Monday in south Beirut, did not hold a particularly senior rank in the party. But he was the son of Imad Mughniyeh, a top Hezbollah operative widely considered to have built Hezbollah’s military operations infrastructure and the second-most revered figure inside Hezbollah.

He was assassinated in 2008 in Damascus in a bombing that Hezbollah says was carried out by Israel’s Mossad spy agency.

The 25-year-old Mughniyeh took on a more prominent role after the death of his father. He has been photographed with Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the group’s leader, and with the powerful Iranian Gen. Ghasem Soleimani, highlighting his prominence within the group.

“For Hezbollah leaders, rank and file, and core supporters, the attack against Jihad Mughniyeh is akin to an attack against a member of their own family,” said Randa Slim, a director at the Washington-based Middle East Institute.

“The fact that Hezbollah has not avenged Imad Mughniyeh’s death to-date raises the bar for Nasrallah and Hezbollah military leadership to react in a big way this time … irrespective of the risks of an escalation,” she said.

Mughniyeh, who had recently been entrusted with overseeing operations in the Golan Heights, is the group’s most prominent figure to die so far in Syria since Hezbollah joined the conflict next door in 2012, fighting on Assad’s side against the Sunni-led rebellion.