BEIRUT – Hezbollah and Syrian regime forces are readying a major offensive against rebels along the Golan demarcation line with Israel, according to an Iranian news agency.

Fars News reported Monday that the Syrian army “completed preparations necessary for an extensive operation in southern Syria” that would be joined by Hezbollah.

Syrian military sources said that Hezbollah deployed fighters “in the vicinity of the Quneitra border crossing,” a reference to the frontlines between rebel and pro-regime forces southwest of the government strongholds of Madinat al-Baath and Khan Arnabeh.

“[Hezbollah] aims to put an end to the presence of armed men in the area close to the border,” the sources told the Iranian outlet.

Meanwhile, a local pro-rebel war correspondent reported on Tuesday that Hezbollah and pro-regime forces withdrew a number of their combatants and tanks from Madinat al-Baath and Khan Arnabeh, without specifying where the troops were transferred.

The Fars News report comes after the leader of Iran’s paramilitary Basij force, General Mohammad Reza Naqdi, toured Syria’s border with Israel near Quneitra in July, the first such visit of a top-ranking official from Tehran to be publicized in Iranian media.

Cross-border incidents

In past weeks, pro-regime forces have bombarded rebel positions in Al-Hamidiyah and other rebel-held villages along the Golan border near the Quneitra crossing, with a number of mortar rounds hitting Israel, prompting Tel Aviv to launch retaliatory strikes on at least four occasions.

On July 4, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) hit two Syrian army targets in the Golan after stray fire damaged the technical fence stretching across the demarcation line between the two countries in the mountainous region.

Two weeks later, an unmanned aerial vehicle crossed over the border into Israeli territory in the central Golan, prompting Israel to fire two Patriot missiles in an unsuccessful attempt to shoot down the drone.

An air-to-air missile fired by an Israeli jet also failed to bring down the drone, which Tel Aviv suspects is Russian-manufactured.

In the latest incident, Israel once again responded to a stray cross-border mortar strike on September 4, hitting a Syrian army target in the Golan, as per Tel Aviv’s standard practice of retaliation to errant fire.

A local pro-Assad fighting force also claimed that Israel conducted a missile strike on one of its convoys in the Quneitra province, although Tel Aviv has made no official comment on the accusation while Syrian state media has also stayed mum.

The Golan Regiment announced on July 28 that two Israeli Nimrod missiles hit one of its positions, but did not name the specific location of the strike.

“The commander of the Golan Regiment’s Fist Battalion, Majid Himoud, escaped the Zionist [strike],” the group, which is part of the Syrian regime’s auxiliary National Defense Force, announced on its official Facebook page.

The militia, which is predominantly Druze, added that Israel fired the missiles from its side of the divided Golan Heights, but did not specify whether the Nimrods were launched from an aircraft or the ground.

NOW's English news desk editor Albin Szakola (@AlbinSzakola) wrote this report. Amin Nasr translated Arabic-language material.