BEIRUT: Hezbollah on Wednesday threatened to retaliate after Israel's first reported air raid targeting a position of the Lebanese Shiite movement since the 2006 war.

The statement comes two days after Israeli warplanes struck a Hezbollah position in eastern Lebanon, amid fears that the region may be dragged into further conflict.

"On Monday night... the Israeli enemy's warplanes bombarded a Hezbollah position on the Lebanese-Syrian border, near the area of Janta in the Bekaa Valley" in eastern Lebanon, Hezbollah said. Wednesday's statement was the group's first admission that it had been the target of the raid.

Hariri trial postponed till May

The UN-backed tribunal set up to try the killers of former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri has postponed the trial at least until May so a fifth suspect can be added, it said Wednesday.

Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) judges ordered earlier this month that Hassan Habib Merhi, 48, was to join the repeatedly delayed trial in absentia of four other Hezbollah members for the 2005 attack that killed Hariri and 22 others, including the suicide bomber.

"The judges ordered the adjournment of the trial... until at least early to mid-May to allow defence counsel for Merhi adequate time to prepare for trial and to conduct their own investigations," the STL said from its headquarters just outside The Hague.

The four initial suspects finally went on trial in January for the massive downtown Beirut bombing on February 14, 2005, that also wounded 226 others.

Prosecutors are aiming to prove the accused mens' involvement through tracking their alleged use of mobile phones before, during and after the attack.

Hariri, Lebanon's Sunni Muslim prime minister until his resignation in October 2004, was on his way home for lunch when a suicide bomber detonated a van full of explosives equivalent to 2.5 tonnes of TNT as his armoured convoy passed.

The backlash against his killing led Syria to withdraw its troops from the country, ending a presence that lasted nearly 30 years.