Israeli warplanes target Gaza airport,Hariri vows united Lebanon against Israeli threats

Israeli warplanes target Gaza airport
Israeli warplanes have launched an overnight attack on the southern Gaza Strip, pounding an international airport in the Hamas-run Palestinian territory.

The air strike came Tuesday night when Israeli F-16 fighter jets targeted the Yasser Arafat International Airport in Dahaniya, Rafah.

Locals said the warplanes fired five missiles into the facility, but there were no immediate reports of casualties.

An Israeli army spokesperson confirmed the strike and claimed that the attack came in retaliation for projectiles launched into the western Negev desert in recent days.

In a separate statement, the army threatened to "continue to operate firmly" against the Palestinian resistance fighters, claiming "Hamas is solely responsible for maintaining peace and quiet in the Gaza Strip."

A week earlier, Israeli forces targeted the Gaza airport and a tunnel across the Gaza-Egypt border, leaving three Palestinians wounded.

The southern city of Rafah has been under constant Israeli air strikes that aims to disrupt Palestinian underground tunnels across the border with Egypt.

Israel accuses Palestinian fighters operating in the Gaza Strip of using the tunnels to smuggle and store arms. However, the Palestinians dismiss such allegations, describing the network as the last resort to bring in food, fuel and other vital commodities to keep the 1.5 million Gazans from suffocation under the Israeli-imposed blockade of the whole territory.
[link to www.presstv.ir]

Hariri vows united Lebanon against Israeli threats
Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri voices concern about escalating Israeli threats but insists that Tel Aviv will be confronted by a united Lebanon if a war breaks out.

"We hear a lot of Israeli threats day in and day out, and not only threats," Hariri told the BBC on Wednesday.

"We see what's happening on the ground and in our airspace and what's happening all the time during the past two months — every day we have Israeli planes entering Lebanese airspace," Hariri added.

The Lebanese leader noted that such moves by Israel were on the rise and warned, "This is something that is really dangerous."

The remarks come after repeated threats from Israeli officials in recent weeks of a full-fledged war against Lebanon's Hezbollah resistance movement, and amid Tel Aviv's war of words with the Damascus Government.

Hariri said Israel counts on Lebanon's confessionally-divided politics and the assumption that the Lebanese could not unite in case of a foreign attack.

"I think they're betting that there might be some division in Lebanon, if there is a war against us…Well, there won't be a division in Lebanon."

"We will stand against Israel. We will stand with our own people," he vowed.
[link to www.presstv.ir]