Lebanese, Syrian FMs Consult on Israeli Air Raid

Lebanese Foreign Minister Mahmoud Hammoud Sunday night discussed with his Syrian counterpart Faruk Shareh over telephone the latest Israeli attack on a Syrian target in Lebanon, the official NNA news agency reported.

The two ministers stressed that Lebanon and Syria have the same and steadfast position on Israeli attack.

They restated their rejection of Israel's military threat to Syrian troops in Lebanon, saying that Israel should shoulder the consequences of its aggression.

The two countries called on the international community and the United Nations to press Israel to stop its aggression of Lebanon.

Israeli planes on Sunday attacked a Syrian radar station in Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon, leaving two Syrian soldiers and one Lebanese wounded.

The air raid was in retaliation for the Syrian-backed Hezbollah's attack Friday on an Israeli position in the disputed Shebaa Farms along the border, in which two Israeli soldiers were wounded.

Israel withdrew from south Lebanon in May 2000, ending a 22-year occupation, under pressure from Lebanese resistance movement spearheaded by Hezbollah, or Party of God.

But Hezbollah vows to continue fighting until the occupied farms are returned to Lebanon.

Israel insists that it captured the farms from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war and that the issue should be resolved in its future peace talks with Syria.






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