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<p>Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Monday that his country would hold the Lebanese government responsible for any attacks on Israeli targets by the country's Hezbollah militia.</p> <p>It was the latest shot in a war of words that has been escalating since a July 14 explosion at a suspected Hezbollah arms depot near the Israeli border.</p>

The German weekly Der Spiegel reported Saturday that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert plans to declare the two soldiers kidnapped by Hezbollah, Eldad Regev and Udi Goldwasser, dead. Olmert was in Germany last week, and the Germans are the chief mediators between Israel and Hezbollah on this issue. The likelihood that they are dead increases with every day that goes by with no sign of life from them. Israeli security sources confirmed last night that the intelligence community is reassessing the kidnapped soldiers' situation and is likely to make "difficult decisions" on the matter in the coming weeks. But Israel is...

BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) -- The leader of Hezbollah accused Israel on Friday of being behind a string of killings of anti-Syria figures in Lebanon, saying the Jewish state was trying to foment strife between his Islamic militant movement and other Lebanese communities. Supporters of Lebanon's government and others have repeatedly blamed Syria for the killings, charging Syria wants to bring down Prime Minister Fuad Saniora by killing off lawmakers who give him a slim parliamentary majority. Hassan Nasrallah, whose anti-Israeli group leads the pro-Syria opposition to Lebanon's U.S.-backed government, made the allegation during a speech to a rally held in...

Hizbullah hasn't conducted attacks in America out of concern that it would provoke too strong a response and disrupt the organization's fund-raising in the US, according to Federal Bureau of Investigation assessments. "They want to maintain a low profile by engaging in criminal activity [but] not direct attacks," Thomas Fuentes, special agent in charge of the FBI's International Operations, said Wednesday at a foreign press briefing. "They've not been enthusiastic about doing it on US soil because of the attention and reaction that would occur." Fuentes said any attack in America would mean a large boost in US resources devoted...

Shooting erupted on the Israel-Lebanon border during an Israeli operation to search for bombs planted by Hezbollah guerillas late Wednesday night, the army said. The army said troops operating in Israeli territory along the frontier came under fire, and that the source of the shooting was apparently Lebanese troops nearby. When the attackers refused to cease fire, the Israeli troops opened fire at them, the army said. The gunfire came as Israeli armored bulldozers searched for explosives planted by Hezbollah guerrillas along the frontier, the army said. The army said its vehicles were clearing land and searching for bombs near...

Defense officials slammed UNIFIL and the Lebanese government Monday night, claiming that their "slackness" was what enabled Hizbullah to plant five deadly explosive devices along the border between Israel and Lebanon. IDF officials said it was possible that the bombs were planted as part of a planned kidnapping attack similar to the July 12 abduction of reservists Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser that sparked the war this past summer. Defense Minister Amir Peretz transmitted a harsh-worded message to UNIFIL command in Lebanon and urged the peacekeeping force to crack down on Hizbullah and prevent the guerrilla group from returning to...

During the Lebanon war last summer, the IDF encountered a Hizbullah guerrilla force armed head-to-toe with advanced weaponry supplied by Syria and Iran. At one point during the war, the IDF even opened up its warehouses to show the weapons it had captured. There were missile launchers with Syrian markings and antitank missiles supplied by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. But according to Maj. Yigal Averson, deputy commander of a battalion of Armored Brigade 7, he also encountered a Syrian tank being used by Hizbullah. Averson, who led his troops during the 33-day war inside Lebanon, told The Jerusalem Post this...

During the fighting in Lebanon Hezbollah received direct intelligence support from Syria, using data collected by listening posts jointly manned by Russian and Syrian crews. Hezbollah was also fed intelligence from new listening posts built on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights, which are operated jointly with Iran. This information was confirmed in recent reports by the defense journal Jane's. Syria's centrality to the collection and transfer of intelligence to Hezbollah is based on separate agreements Damascus signed with Moscow and Tehran on intelligence cooperation. The agreement with Russia is much older than the one with Iran, which was...

National Infrastructures Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer (Labor) called on Saturday for the assassination of Hizbullah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah. "He is dangerous to everyone," Ben-Eliezer declared in an interview to Army Radio - an interview that Army Radio reported was picked up and reported by a number of foreign news outlets, including the British Sky News - and said that Israel should target Nasrallah at an "appropriate opportunity." Ben-Eliezer also said that he was "unimpressed" by Syrian President Bashar Assad's announcement that he was willing to negotiate with Israel. Regarding the IDF withdrawal from Lebanon, Ben-Eliezer said that the army would...

MARJAYOUN, Lebanon -- Six weeks after the end of the Lebanon war, the militant Hezbollah group is facing little on-the-ground pressure to give up its weapons and disarm — despite a U.N. cease-fire resolution demanding just that. The leaders of a U.N. peacekeeping force in south Lebanon say the job is not theirs. And Lebanon's ill-equipped army, some of whose soldiers wear tin-pot helmets and carry outdated M-16 rifles, shows no signs of diving into a confrontation with battle-hardened Hezbollah fighters. For now, all sides say it's likely full disarmament will happen only in the future as part of a...

Defense Minister Amir Peretz, who was one of the early leaders of the Left's "peace camp," rejected one of its most basic tenants on Tuesday when he told a gathering of activists, "It's not the case that Israel has rejected partners for peace. It's more correct to understand that every time Israel sought a partner over the past year, there wasn't one available." The audience, which represented about half of the 100 organizations that compose the Palestinian-Israeli Peace NGO Forum, sat quietly through his half-hour speech in Tel Aviv. It was his first meeting with activists from the left-wing "peace...

"We did not know enough about Hizbullah's deployment in south Lebanon," a senior IDF officer said on Monday. The officer added that the war revealed a number of shortcomings regarding the handling of ground intelligence. He said that a lack of coordination between the air force and ground troops weakened the ability of IAF pilots to come to the aid of soldiers on the ground. "While the pilots had intelligence information that was updated in 2006, ground forces used intelligence from 2000 - I am not singling anybody out for blame, but there is no doubt that presented problems," he...

Offers by anti-Israel countries to patrol Lebanon, Hizbullah's welcoming of Lebanese troops and the abandonment of vows to disarm the terrorist group leave Hizbullah stronger and Israel weaker. Any hopes that the United Nations Security Council ceasefire resolution ending the hostilities between Hizbullah terrorists and Israel would make Israel safer continue to dissipate. "Villagers throwing rice and Hizbullah supporters holding banners welcomed the [Lebanese] army to south Lebanon," according to the Associated Press. For the first time in three decades, Lebanese Army troops neared the Israeli border this morning [Friday], as they continue to deploy in southern Lebanon. However,...

In a plain government office, in a room no different from the standard medical facility, a DNA sample from the body of a Lebanese man has been kept for almost nine years. It belongs to Hadi Nasrallah, the son of the Hezbollah leader, who was killed in a battle with the IDF in 1997. The body was taken by fighters from the Egoz reconnaissance unit and returned to Lebanon in return for the body of a Shayetet 13 (Naval Commando) fighter, Itamar Iliya, who was killed in the failed Naval Commando raid in the village of Ansariya in Lebanon. Hassan...

Hizbullah distributed leaflets on Monday congratulating Lebanon on its "big victory" and thanking citizens for their patience during the 34-day war with Israel. Supporters of the terror group were seen passing out leaflets to cars heading south on the Zahrani highway, which connects the hard-hit southern cities of Nabatiyeh, Tyre and Sidon. "Congratulations to you on the big victory, with the support of God, the mujahedeen (holy warriors) and your patience," it read. The flyers also warned people not to touch any suspicious objects, which could be unexploded ordnance. Meanwhile, thousands of cars flooded Lebanon's bombed out highways heading south...

While Hezbollah and its leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrrallah, have been crowned the latest kings of the Arab street, that may not be translating into much concrete support, outside of routine statements, the most bellicose of which come from the organization's patrons, Syria and Iran. Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, in the face of "inflamed" public opinion, "flatly ruled out" calls for the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador and economic boycotts of Israel and the U.S. "Boycotts have negative effects on the economy of any country," he was quoted as telling members of the ruling National Democratic Party on Monday. And in...

Israeli Navy ships destroyed the Adi Nasrallsh Harbor in south Beirut on Friday evening. According to the army, the harbor, named after Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah's son who was killed by the IDF 1997, was the launching site of the Iranian C-802 missile that was fired at the Navy ship Hanit killing four soldiers in mid-July. The site was also used to train Hizbullah operatives in weapons-smuggling, the army said.

Three people were killed and at least 86 more were wounded, one critically and five seriously, as rockets landed across the North on Friday. A barrage of rockets landed near Karmiel just before 6 p.m., killing two people in the villages of Majdal Krum and Dir el-Assad. Meanwhile, rockets fired by Hizbullah on Friday evening landed near the Syrian city of Kuneitra located several kilometers east of the Golan Heights. No injuries or damage were reported. The IDF said that the firing at Kuneitra represented yet another attempt to drag Syria into the conflict. Several long-range rockets also landed near...

Hezbos in America: Another Sign That Tells It All By Debbie Schlussel This is a sign from Tuesday's pro-Hezbollah rally in Dearbornistan (they have rallies practically daily, with thousands of Hezbollah terrorism supporters on our soil): No American Flags in Their Hands, But . . .

It’s not clear which of my experiences last week was more educational: Sitting on a hilltop on Israel's northern border, watching Bint Jbiel getting pummeled by artillery, bombs, and missiles — or meeting the Western television reporters who were covering the war, and seeing firsthand how they made theater out of bloodshed. NBC’s Ann Curry was on the scene. She was taken to a meadow from which a half-dozen 155mm artillery pieces were pounding away at Hezbollah. Curry approached a resting crew of artillery reservists, put a camera and microphone in the face of one pony-tailed young man, and asked...