Russia says Hezbollah is still organised despite Israeli attacks

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's foreign ministry said on Wednesday that Hezbollah was still organised and had not lost its chain of command despite strikes by Israel which Moscow said was trying to stoke an armed conflict across the Middle East.

"According to our assessments, Hezbollah, including the military wing, has not lost its chain of command and is demonstrating organisation," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told reporters.

Zakharova said that the West, in particular the United States and Britain, was stoking the conflict in the Middle East and showing hypocrisy by its support for Israel which was inflicting significant civilian casualties in Lebanon.

Hezbollah was formed by Iran's Revolutionary Guards in the early 1980s to battle Israel. It is also a major social, religious and political movement for Lebanese Shi'ite Muslims.

Russia also scolded Israel for a strike on Syria.

"Once again, Israel has grossly violated the sovereignty of Syria by launching a missile attack on a multi-storey apartment building in a densely populated area of Damascus," Zakharova said.

"It is outrageous that such actions have literally turned into a routine practice applied to Syria, Lebanon, and the Gaza Strip," Zakharova said, adding that it showed Israel's "desire to further expand the geography of armed escalation in the region."

(Reporting by Dmitry Antonov; Writing by Lucy Papachristou; editing by Guy Faulconbridge)

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