Israel Matzav

Hezbollah moving rockets near away from Israeli border

You just knew this would happen eventually given the weakness of the UN 'troops' in Lebanon. The only reason it took this long is that there were still (and are still - although very few of them) Israeli troops in Lebanon.

WorldNetDaily is reporting that Hezbullah has moved rockets close to Lebanon's border with Israel again. As we will see, however, it seems like the opposite is true - that Hezbullah is moving its rockets away from the border area to 'Palestinian refugee camps.' The report is based on 'Lebanese officials' - not Israelis - and it describes the movement of rockets into 'Palestinian refugee camps' that are located south of Beirut and in the Bekaa Valley. "South of Beirut" (and YNet has it as "just south of Beirut") likely means north of the Litani River, which means that they are not moving into an area close to the border and long-range rockets - supposedly destroyed during the recent war - would be required to do significant damage, R"L (God forbid). The Bekaa Valley is true Hezbullah country, but it is also nowhere near the border with Israel; if anything it is probably further away than "south of Beirut," being located in the Northeast part of Lebanon.

But this is apparently part of a larger pattern in which Hezbullah has been building bunkers - to replace the ones Israel destroyed in southern Lebanon - in the 'Palestinian refugee camps' where - according to WorldNetDaily - "the Lebanese army doesn't have the authority to patrol." Now there's an interesting statement. Consider the following:

1. How does a sovereign state have areas that are off limits to its army (and presumably police) without an agreement with another sovereign that has such authority?

2. Given that the Lebanese army is infested with Hezbullah (or Shiites who support Hezbullah) anyway, would it really help if they were allowed to enter the camps?

The real question here is whether the UN force's mandate includes entering the 'Palestinian refugee campes' and if not, why not. (WorldNetDaily says that the UN forces are not authorized to enter the 'Palestinian refugee camps,' but there is nothing that says that anywhere in UN Security Council Resolution 1701).

It should be noted that during Friday's 'victory speech,' Hassan Nasrallah claimed that Hezbullah still has 20,000 rockets - a claim that Israel has not denied. Of course, that has to make you wonder why we went into Lebanon in the first place since we apparently left most of his rockets in place.

Finally, there is this little tidbit from the WorldNetDaily article:

A senior Lebanese official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told WND Hezbollah started building a new set of bunker systems, this time in Palestinian refugee camps.

"The Lebanese Army doesn't have the authority to patrol inside the camps," said the official. "Hezbollah knows it is safe there to rebuild their war bunkers, and they began doing so with Iranian help."

A second Lebanese official confirmed the information, which came one day after Israel's Army Radio reported Hezbollah was seen by the Israeli army dismantling 14 outposts near the border with Israel, removing rockets and equipment for transport.

According to Army Radio, Hezbollah members blocked entry to their outposts using bulldozers. Trucks then removed weapons and other munitions from the area. Vehicles also reportedly cleared furniture and equipment from the outposts.

From all of this, I would conclude that - contrary to the title of WorldNetDaily's article - Hezbullah is not moving rockets towards Lebanon's border with Israel, but into the 'Palestinian refugee camps,' that are located further away from Lebanon's border with Israel than its former bases in southern Lebanon. The unanswered question is whether and how much of its earlier long-range rocket capability Hezbullah maintains, and whether how quickly it can or will be replenished by Iran and Syria. My gut feeling is that Hezbullah will lay low for a while until Iran can re-arm it with long-range rockets, and then Hezbullah may come after Israel again. When that happens (and at some point it will likely happen), we Israelis must hope that we will have a different government in place that will have less compunctions about going all out to defeat Hezbullah. The fact that the UN force has no mandate to go into the 'Palestinian refugee camps' can act in our favor as well, since that should mean that the UN forces will not be in the IDF's way.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:34 AM