The IDF said Thursday it was reinforcing the country's northern border with infantry troops "in accordance with the situational assessment."
The move follows earlier threats by the Hezbollah terrorist group that it will retaliate, "from Lebanese soil," over an alleged Israeli airstrike south of the Syrian capital on Monday. Hezbollah claims that one of its operatives, Ali Kamel Mohsen Jawad, was killed in Monday's strike near Damascus International Airport. The airstrike also killed four other foreign fighters, according to foreign reports.
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The army's reinforcements include one battalion as well as additional troops, who were being sent to the IDF Northern Command's Galilee Division, the IDF said.
"Following a recent situation assessment, the IDF has decided to send reinforcement of infantry troops to the Northern Command," an IDF spokesperson said in a statement.
Saudi paper Asharq al-Awsat reported on Thursday morning that Lebanese sources confirmed Hezbollah had decided to respond to the alleged Israeli airstrike near the Damascus airport. With that, experts posited that despite the death of its operative, Hezbollah is facing a tough dilemma. The consequences of retaliating could be severe, but failing to respond to the death of the operative could harm morale within the organization's ranks, the experts said.
Iran-backed Hezbollah has vowed in the past to retaliate for any fighter that Israel kills in Syria. The group fired a barrage of anti-tank missiles into Israel on Sept. 1 last year after two of its fighters were killed in an Israeli airstrike near Damascus days earlier.
That prompted a reprisal of heavy Israeli artillery fire in a rare burst of fighting between the bitter enemies. Hezbollah and Israel fought the 34-day Second Lebanon War in 2006.
Israel did not comment on this week's strike and generally refrains from discussing its activities in neighboring Syria. But it is believed to have carried out hundreds of strikes against pro-Iranian forces during the nearly decade-long civil war.
Tehran has sent thousands of Iran-backed fighters in the past years to fight alongside Syrian government forces.
Israel views Iran as a regional menace and has vowed to prevent any permanent Iranian military buildup in Syria, particularly near its frontier.
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