Syria will enter the Israeli-Hizbullah fight if Israeli ground troops enter Lebanon and approach Syria, Syrian Information Minister Mohsen Bilal said in an interview published on Sunday. "If Israel invades Lebanon over ground and comes near to us, Syria will not sit tight. She will join the conflict," he told newspaper ABC.
Meanwhile, following a meeting Sunday with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Israel's Defense Minister Amir Peretz said a multinational force should act to prevent the smuggling of weapons from Syria into Lebanon. According to Peretz, Israel has no intention of entering into a war with Syria.
He added that Israel would accept a temporary international force, preferably headed by NATO, deployed along the Lebanese border to keep Hizbullah away from Israel. "Israel's goal is to see the Lebanese army deployed along the border with Israel, but we understand that we are taking about a weak army and that in the midterm period Israel will have to accept a multinational force," he said, according to his office. Peretz suggested NATO be in charge of the force.
