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Hezbollah rocket arsenal bigger
27/08/2007 21:34 - (SA)
Jerusalem - Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said on Tuesday that the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon has about 20 000 rockets in its arsenal, significantly more than it did before a war with Israel last year.
The rockets are located far from the border with Israel, north of the Litani river but within striking range of Israel, Barak told the parliamentary Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee, according to participants in the closed meeting.
Yuval Steinitz, a member of the committee, said the number of rockets represented a 40% to 50% increase over the rocket figure before last summer's war.
Hezbollah fired almost 4 000 rockets at northern Israel during the 34-day war in 2006, and Israeli land and air assaults caused heavy damage to Lebanese towns and neighbourhoods.
The war was sparked by a Hezbollah attack on an Israeli border patrol in which three soldiers were killed and two taken captive.
The fate of the captured soldiers remains unknown. More than 1 000 Lebanese and 158 Israelis died in the fighting.
The UN-brokered cease-fire that ended the war expanded UNIFIL, the international peacekeeping force in south Lebanon, to 13 000 troops, entrusting it with ensuring that Hezbollah is not rearming near the Israeli border.
- AP
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