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Lebanon vows to retaliate for gunfire from Syria

17 March 2025 20:05 (UTC +04:00)

Lebanon's president on Monday ordered troops to retaliate for gunfire from the Syrian side of the border after more deadly fighting erupted overnight along the tense frontier, APA reports citing France 24.

The fighting occurred after Syria's interim government accused militants from Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group of crossing into Syria on Saturday, abducting three soldiers and killing them on Lebanese soil.

It was the most serious cross-border fighting since the ouster of former Syrian President Bashar Assad in December.

Syrian News Channel, citing an unnamed Defence Ministry official, said the Syrian army shelled “Hezbollah gatherings that killed Syrian soldiers” along the border. Hezbollah denied involvement in a statement on Sunday.

Information Minister Paul Morkos said Lebanon's defence minister told a Cabinet meeting that the three killed were smugglers. He added that one child was killed and six people were wounded on the Lebanese side.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said five Syrian soldiers were killed during Monday’s clashes. Footage circulated online and in local media showed families towards the Lebanese town of Hermel.

Lebanon's state news agency reported that fighting intensified Monday evening near Hermel.

“What is happening along the eastern and northeastern border cannot continue and we will not accept that it continues,” Lebanon's President Joseph Aoun said on X. “I have given my orders to the Lebanese army to retaliate against the source of fire.”

Aoun added that he asked Lebanon's foreign minister, who is currently in Brussels for a donors conference on Syria, to contact Syrian officials to resolve the problem "and prevent further escalation".