Israeli air force accused of striking Palestinian base in Lebanon in act likened to 'declaration of war'

BEIRUT – Israeli drones bombed a Palestinian base in eastern Lebanon near the border with Syria early Monday amid rising tensions in the Middle East, the Lebanese state-run National News Agency and a Palestinian official said. The strike came a day after an alleged Israeli drone crashed in a stronghold of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah in southern Beirut while another exploded and crashed nearby. Lebanese President Michel Aoun told the U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon, Jan Kubis, that the attacks violate a U.N. Security Council resolution that ended the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah. "What happened is equal to a declaration of war and gives us the right to defend our sovereignty, independence, and the safety of our land," Aoun said in comments released by his office Monday. "We are people who seek peace and not war, and we don't accept that anyone to threatens us though any means."