By Nabil Al Mulhem
Damascus
A top Hizbollah official has not ruled out Israeli hostilities against Lebanon after the Lebanese Islamist party announced the capture of an Israeli colonel, who Hizbollah says is a Mossad agent.
In an interview with Albawaba.com, chief of the movement’s politburo, Mohammad Ra’ad said that an Israeli military operation against Lebanon is “the natural reaction of the belligerent Zionists, who find themselves in a dilemma these days. This can be seen in their confused security and political performance and is due to the fact that the Palestinian Intifada spread into the 1948 occupied areas. The peace talks reached a deadlock, and the Islamic resistance is putting pressure on Israel to withdraw from the Lebanese occupied lands and release prisoners.”
However, Israeli escalation of violence against Lebanon will not be an easy task for the Israelis, according to Ra’ad, who added that “the Islamic resistance’s state of readiness for a firm and determined response for a possible attack is at its best.”
Ra’ad’s statement came after Hizbollah’s Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah announced that the group captured an Israeli colonel suspected of spying and attempting to penetrate the party which spearheaded resistance against Israeli occupation of in south Lebanon.
Israel withdrew from the occupied zone on May 24, but Lebanon and Hizbollah say that the Jewish state still occupies the Shabaa farms, where Hizbollah seized three Israeli sergeants last week.
Western media have linked the capture of the colonel, identified by Israel as Elhanan Tannenbaum, with a five-member ring of Mossad agents, two of whom were arrested while bugging the flat of a Lebanese living in Burn who Mossad suspected was a Hizbollah official.
Last July, one of the agents was given a suspended 12-year jail sentence by the Swiss Federal Court, which agreed not to disclose the real name of agent or those of his accomplices “for security reasons.”
Bental confessed to having links with the Mossad.
The scandal almost severed diplomatic relations between Switzerland and Israel.
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
