Sound The Trumpet : Hezbollah stockpiles 40,000 rockets near Israel border

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“Hezbollah stockpiles 40,000 rockets near Israel border”
by Timesonline -- Richard Beeston on the Israel-Lebanese border and Nicholas Blanford in Beirut
August 5th, 2009

Three years after Israel fought a bloody war in Lebanon against Hezbollah, there are fears that hostilities could erupt again — this time with the militant group better armed than ever.

According to Israeli, United Nations and Hezbollah officials, the Shia Muslim militia is stronger than it was in 2006 when it took on the Israeli army in a war that killed 1,191 Lebanese and 43 Israeli civilians.

Hezbollah has up to 40,000 rockets and is training its forces to use ground-to-ground missiles capable of hitting Tel Aviv, and anti-aircraft missiles that could challenge Israel’s dominance of the skies over Lebanon.

Brigadier-General Alon Friedman, the deputy head of the Israeli Northern Command, told The Times from his headquarters overlooking the Israeli-Lebanese border that the peace of the past three years could “explode at any minute”.

His concerns were due partly to threats from Hezbollah’s leadership. Last month Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, warned that if the southern suburbs of Beirut were bombed as they were in the last war, he would strike back against Tel Aviv, the largest Israeli city.

“We have changed the equation that had existed previously,” he said. “Now the southern suburbs versus Tel Aviv, and not Beirut versus Tel Aviv.”

Hezbollah’s rearming is in the name of resistance against Israel. The real reason, however, probably has more to do with its ally Iran. If Israel carries out its threat to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, the main retaliation is likely to come from Hezbollah in Lebanon.

All sides agreed that the threat was not a bluff. Last month the scale of the Hezbollah build-up was revealed after an explosion at an ammunition bunker in the village of Khirbet Slim, 12 miles from the Israeli border.

Surveillance footage obtained by The Times showed Hezbollah fighters trying to salvage rockets and munitions from the site. Obstructions were placed in the way of Unifil peacekeepers going to investigate.

Alain Le Roy, the head of UN peacekeeping operations, told the Security Council last month that the explosion amounted to a serious violation of UN Resolution 1701, which imposed a ceasefire and arms ban after the war.

“A number of indications suggest that the depot belonged to Hezbollah and, in contrast to previous discoveries by Unifil and the Lebanese Armed Forces of weapons and ammunition, that it was not abandoned but, rather, actively maintained,” he said.

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