Following an official Israeli request, Russia has informed Lebanon that Tel Aviv will respond strictly to any Hizbullah military operation with attacks that could target Syrian troops deployed in Lebanon, diplomatic sources were quoted by the Lebanese Daily Star on Monday.
According to these sources, the Israeli request was submitted to the Russian Foreign Ministry’s envoy to the Middle East, Andre Vodvin, during his recent visit to Israel. The sources said Israel has launched a diplomatic campaign against Lebanon and Hizbullah not only with the United States but with Russia and the United Nations as well.
However, according to these sources, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan was not impressed by the claims of either Israel’s Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer or Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, who argued Iran deployed 10,000 missiles and thousands of Revolutionary Guards on the border with Israel.
Nasrallah
Meanwhile, Hizbullah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has urged the Palestinians to follow the path of his group’s guerrilla tactics in their uprising against Israel. “A guerrilla war needs to be waged against the Zionist army in order to achieve victory,” Nasrallah said during a ceremony commemorating the anniversary of Israel’s assassination of his predecessor Abbas Musawi in the Bekaa town of Nabi Sheet.
Nasrallah declared that during the occupation, his movement achieved “some degree of balance in terror by using the modest Katyusha rocket, which for large armies is nothing more than a water pistol.”
“Some might say the Qassam rockets will not frighten a cat. But do not minimize their importance because the Zionists are more cowardly than cats,” he said. Nasrallah said the Palestinian intifada “was closer than ever to achieving true victory.” (Albawaba.com)
