Middle East Update

Senior Hizb’Allah officials will participate in a weekend conference in France aimed at devising a solution to the current political crisis in Lebanon. Hizb’Allah had threatened to snub the conference following a statement by French President Nicolas Sarkozy in which he described the militant Shi’ite group as a terrorist organization.

A top special operations officer from Lebanon’s Iranian-backed militia Hezbollah has been captured in Iraq, where U.S. officials say he played a key role in a January attack that killed five Americans.

Lebanon’s defense minister issued an ultimatum Wednesday May 23, to Islamic militants barricaded in a Palestinian refugee camp to surrender or face a military onslaught, as the army reinforced its positions, raising fears of what could be a bloody showdown. In Lebanon this week, Fatah al-Islam gang members made their way back [...]

Black plumes of smoke poured from a Palestinian refugee camp near Tripoli on Tuesday May 22, as members of an Islamic militant group battled the Lebanese army for a third day.

Noah Pollak
In reality, UNIFIL in Lebanon gives diplomats an excuse to do nothing about Hizbullah’s rearmament, and its presence on the ground complicates Israel’s ability to engage the terrorist army in battle. The new UNIFIL force is afraid to confront Hizbullah, unwilling to interrupt the easy flow of arms across Lebanon, and prohibited from patrolling [...]

Illegal weapons shipping into Lebanon across the Syrian border, largely to arm the Hizb’Allah terror group, is taking place on a regular basis, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said ON May 7. In a report to the UN Security Council, Ban said news of arms shipments - including “detailed and substantial” reports from Israel and [...]

All of Hizbullah’s policies and activities are coordinated with the leadership of Iran, including the firing of rockets into Israeli population centers for which direct Iranian approval is required, said a senior Hizbullah official in a rare admission.

Almost eight months after the war in Lebanon, police lifted a gag order on Thursday March 22, and said that during the fighting, a Hizbullah rocket landed in a Haifa chemical refinery and narrowly missed hitting a dangerous chemical dump in the area, narrowly averting the possible deaths of hundreds of people.

Spurred on by Hizb’Allah’s success against the Israeli army in southern Lebanon last summer, Hamas has beefed up its defensive presence across the Gaza Strip building an array of fortified, underground bunkers similar to those used by the Iranian-backed Shi’ite militia to launch attacks at Israel during the recent Lebanon border war. According to reports [...]

MK Arye Eldad advises PM and Defense Minister to ’start packing their belongings’
Israel’s Winograd Committee appointed to probe the handling of last summer’s war in Lebanon has announced that its interim report would include criticism of individuals in the government and the defense establishment - particularly Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Amir Peretz and [...]