At least 40 Hezbollah fighters have been reportedly killed in the Syrian town of Qusayr late on Sunday, sources told Al Arabiya, following clashes between Syrian rebels and regime forces who attempted to enter the town earlier in the day.
Sources also told Al Arabiya that tens of Hezbollah members were wounded during the fight and had been taken to hospitals in Beirut, Lebanon for treatment.
The assault on Qusayr appeared to be part of a campaign by President Bashar al-Assad's forces to consolidate their grip on Damascus and secure links between the capital and the government strongholds on the coast via the contested central city of Homs.
State news agency SANA said the army had "restored security and stability to most Qusayr neighborhoods" and was "chasing the remnants of the terrorists in the northern district".
Meanwhile, sources said that Hezbollah official Fady al-Jazzar was reportedly among those killed. Al-Jazzar is considered to be a high ranking Hezbollah officer and was imprisoned in Israel until he returned to Lebanon in a prisoner-exchange deal.
News on his death came after contact was lost with the group that was under his command, Al Arabiya said.Other sources in Syria confirm some 23 Hezbollah terrorists killed.
Apparently, though, the town of Quseir came back under Syrian regime control, as they fired huge numbers of rockets into the town.
While Hezbollah moves from Lebanon to Syria to fight, the Syrian civil war made more inroads to Lebanon, with several reportedly killed in Tripoli in Sunni-Shi'ite clashes.
Meanwhile, Syrian gunfire hit the Israeli part of the Golan.
The number of people killed and refugees in Syria over the past two years now exceeds the number killed and of refugees on both sides of the past 100 years of conflict between Zionists and Arabs. So, naturally, this cognitive dissonance causes some people to find ways to blame Israel for Arabs slaughtering each other:
(h/t Israel Muse)