No doubt emboldened by their latest victory against Israel – namely, the farcical prisoner swap deal approved yesterday – Hizbullah are making more demands from, and issuing more threats against, Israel.
Hezbollah considers itself free to strike Israeli soldiers and civilians unless it receives maps of minefields and areas peppered with cluster bombs during the Second Lebanon War, a Lebanese journalist believed familiar with the Shi’ite group’s thinking wrote in an article appearing Monday.
“This will be a sufficient reason for the resistance (Hezbollah) to carry out a thousand operations and to kill the enemy soldiers as it wishes, and perhaps its civilians, as long as the Israeli killing machine continues,” Ibrahim al-Amin wrote in Monday editions of Al-Akhbar.
Al-Amin added that Hezbollah’s arms build-up, which includes training of its gunmen and the development of its military infrastructure, will continue “without permission from anyone.”
Hezbollah is also planning a terrorist attack against an Israeli target as retribution for last year’s killing of arch-terror mastermind Imad Mughniyeh, al-Amin wrote.
“We may see many things that can be portrayed as punishment, but there is one big event that nothing can prevent from happening,” he said. “It will be on the scale of the crime (Mughniyeh killing).”
Al-Amin did not provide many details on Hezbollah’s expected response, but it would be reasonable to assume it would take the form of an attack outside of Lebanese soil. The writer noted that Hezbollah faces practical and technical obstacles as well as intra-Lebanese political considerations that are delaying the execution of the attack.
Al-Amin said Hezbollah does not plan to publicly claim credit for the attack. He wrote that no one in Israel or Lebanon should expect a statement of responsibility to come out of “Kharet Khareikh,” the neighborhood where most of Hezbollah’s headquarters are located. “It will be signed by Mughniyeh’s friends.”
The writer also warned that Hezbollah will retaliate against the Israel Air Force’s continuing sorties in Lebanese airspace in such a way that Israel will feel the price of its actions. He added the international community would see the flights in a different light if Hezbollah were to strike.
Further proof that we should not have been content with anything less than Hizbullah’s destruction after the Second Lebanon War, and should certainly not have agreed to UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which has functioned as nothing more than a UN-sanctioned hudna.
Mark my words. Hizbullah will be attacking us in the near future. I just hope we have real leadership by then.
