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Israel has long said Iran was expanding its influence in a belt of territory that stretches from the Iraqi border to the Lebanese border, where Israel says Iran supplies Hezbollah with arms.Hezbollah and other Iranian-backed militias have a large military presence in Syria and are well entrenched in central and eastern areas near the Iraqi border. Deputy Hezbollah leader Sheikh Naim Qassem told pro-Syrian government television channel al-Maydeen he expected a reaction to the death of at least seven Iranian military personnel during a missile strike earlier this month on the T-4 airfield near Homs, which Iran blamed on Israel.“The deliberate Israeli slaying of Iranians in the T4 base will have a response but we don’t know its nature or its details,” Qassem said in the television interview.The heavily armed and Tehran-backed Shi’ite movement has been a vital military ally of President Bashar Assad in the seven-year-old Syrian war.Hezbollah, which last fought a major war with Israel in 2006, has however said it would not open a new front against its arch-foe from Lebanon.Qassem said the powerful militia did not fight in all the main battles in Syria but was present in any area that was needed. He did not elaborate.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said after the US, British, and French strikes in Syria his country will continue "to move against Iran in Syria."