Tuesday 27 April 2010

Israeli Occupation Army Says Hezbollah Can Strike at Any Moment

Hanan Awarekeh

27/04/2010 It seems that the phantom of Hezbollah military commander Imad Moghniyyeh (Haj Redwan) is still chasing the Israeli occupation soldiers fearing that the resistance group will avenge his assassination at any time and any place.

Four years after the end of the Second Lebanon War, the tense atmosphere among Israeli occupation forces positioned along the northern border of occupied Palestine is evident.

Just last week the gates of two northern communities were sealed off and Israeli army forces were dispatched to the border fence after "Parash Turki" – code for a possible infiltration of fighters - was declared. The warning proved to be false, but the incident was indicative of the growing tension behind the apparent calm in the region.

Senior Israeli occupation officers stationed in the North fear that Hezbollah's ever-increasing motivation to avenge the death of Haj Redwan, who was assassinated in February 2008 by Israel, will manifest itself in an attack on Israeli institutions overseas. The occupation army is not ruling out the possibility of an attack along the Lebanese border either.

The occupation army has recently conducted a number of drills aimed at testing the forces' level of preparedness for a possible Hezbollah attack on Israeli targets - both military and civilian – with rockets, missiles or other weapons.

"Despite the fact that we cannot see the enemy in front of us, we are well aware that it exists and can act at any given moment," an Israeli army official said. "We are operating under the assumption that an incident can occur without us getting any warning from army intelligence. This is why we must maintain a high level or preparedness at all times."

"Hezbollah has the ability to launch an attack along the border. Therefore, soldiers undergo diverse training so that they will be able to respond to any scenario," said the occupation official.

Israel has made recently an uproar of an alleged report published the Kuwaiti al-Rai newspaper last month quoting US and Israeli elements as saying that they believe that Syria has transferred long and medium range surface-to-surface Scud missiles to Hezbollah which could target most of the Zionist entity’s territory.

According to the report, which is based on American sources in Washington, Israeli and Western intelligence services have discovered that the Syrian army has been training Hezbollah operatives on how to operate a line of missiles from Syria's weapons arsenal including anti-aircraft and medium-long range Scud missiles.

However, Washington later has retreated its claims saying it was not confident that the missiles were transferred to Hezbollah.

Last week, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak stated that Israel takes reports that Hezbollah is acquiring advanced weapons, including Scud missiles, very seriously.

He said in a television interview that weapons that destabilize the balance of power in the region will endanger the whole region if such reports were true, adding, however, that Israel "would not launch a war in the North."

Israel estimates Hezbollah's arsenal at some 40,000 rockets, a significant rise from the group's 14,000 rockets in 2006.



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