Hizbullah rocket attack in 2006
Hizbullah rocket attack in 2006Israel News Photo: Flash 90

Hizbullah has turned <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Lebanon, formerly known as the “Switzerland of the Middle East,” into a “powder keg” of explosives, President Shimon Peres said a day after a “work accident’" that may have killed five members of the Iranian-sponsored militia, including a senior terrorist.

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Speaking at the annual Galilee convention in the north, President Peres said that Hizbullah "is endangering Lebanon” just as Hamas is a danger to the Palestinian Authority. Hizbullah’s political party holds a sizeable minority of Lebanese cabinet positions and its alliance with pro-Syria factions threatens the stability of the government

 

Hizbullah has admitted that a blast occurred Monday but has denied numerous reports that five terrorists were killed. The Lebanese army and United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) are investigating the explosion in a three-story storage facility at the home of terrorist Abdel Nasser Issa, near the coastal city of Tyre.

 

He apparently had stored a rocket left over from the Second Lebanon War in 2006 and was trying to dismantle the device when it exploded, according to the French news service AFP, which quoted local residents.

 

Israel has asked UNIFIL to investigate and an Israeli spokesman pointed out that the incident offered further proof that Hizbullah continues to violate the United Nations ceasefire resolution that ended the five-week 2006 war. At the time, the U.N. demanded that Hizbullah and all other “foreign armies” disarm, but the U.N. forces’ commander said at the outset that there was no way to enforce the order.

 

Israeli military and intelligence experts have estimated that Hizbullah has amassed a stockpile of 50,000 rockets, smuggled from Syria, more than twice the number it held before the war began.

 

President Peres said several months ago that the number is 70,000, a figure which Lebanon disputed as being imaginary.