[wvns] Hezbollah: Rockets can reach all Israel
Hezbollah: Rockets can reach all Israel
By ZEINA KARAM, Associated Press Writer
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070724/ap_on_re_mi_ea/lebanon_hezbollah
BEIRUT, Lebanon - Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah said Monday
his group possesses an arsenal of rockets that can reach all of
Israel, including Tel Aviv.
"We could absolutely reach any corner and any point in occupied
Palestine," Nasrallah said in an interview aired by Arab broadcaster
Al-Jazeera and Hezbollah's Al-Manar television.
Celebratory gunshots and fireworks erupted in Beirut's southern
suburbs for several minutes as the interview began and after it ended.
Nasrallah said last year's war between Israel and Hezbollah did not
succeed in diminishing his group's military capabilities. Repeating
earlier claims, the Hezbollah leader said his group could already have
fired at Tel Aviv last summer during the conflict, but had avoided
doing so.
"In July and August 2006, there wasn't a place in occupied Palestine
that the rockets of the resistance could not reach, be it Tel Aviv or
other cities," he said, describing Israel and the Hezbollah guerrillas
in terms usually used by the group.
"We could absolutely do that now," he added.
In Israel, senior military officials said that Hezbollah is not
capable of striking all parts of Israel, but its missiles can reach
the northern Tel Aviv area, which is about 60 miles south of the
border with Lebanon.
Although Hezbollah has succeeded in restoring much of its arsenal
since the end of the war last year, it does not have the same military
might that it had at the start of the fighting, the officials said on
condition of anonymity since they were not authorized to talk to the
media.
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said Hezbollah's
rearmament "is a direct and grave violation of U.N. Security Council
resolution 1701," which ended last year's war.
"The international community must hold accountable those governments,
namely Syria and Iran, who by supplying weapons to Hezbollah are
deliberately trying to undermine the United Nations, the Lebanese
government and peace and stability in the region," he said.
Nasrallah has previously said his group increased its stock of
missiles since the war ended, despite attempts to keep arms from being
smuggled into southern Lebanon.
In a speech in October, he said the guerrillas had 33,000 rockets — up
from the 22,000 he said they had on Sept. 22.
Hezbollah fired nearly 4,000 rockets at northern Israel during the
34-day conflict, including several medium-range missiles that for the
first time hit Israel's third-largest city, Haifa.
Nasrallah also insisted Monday that Israel had failed to hit any
important Hezbollah cache during the war.
Nasrallah warned during the war that he had weapons that could reach
Tel Aviv. Although the city was never targeted, Hezbollah's targets
struck deeper inside Israel than ever before, hitting on at least one
occasion the town of Hadera, 30 miles north of Tel Aviv.
The war began on July 12, 2006, after Hezbollah fighters crossed into
Israel, killing three soldiers and seizing two. Israel then invaded
southern Lebanon and pounded the country with massive bombardments
that destroyed most roads, bridges and other infrastructure.
More than 1,000 Lebanese _mostly civilians_ were killed in the
fighting, while 158 Israelis died, including 119 soldiers.
Nasrallah refused to say Monday whether the two Israeli soldiers were
alive or dead.
Nasrallah, who remains in hiding since last year for fear of an
Israeli assassination, also denied media reports that he lived in
Syria or in the Iranian embassy in Beirut during the war.
Associated Press Writer Laurie Copans in Jerusalem contributed to this
report.
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