A senior army official yesterday renewed an Israeli death threat against the head of the Lebanese Hezbollah resistance movement and warned Syria that it would pay dearly for any military escalation in southern Lebanon. âSuch a thing is not impossible,â said Gen. Benny Gantz, commander of Israelâs northern military region, asked in a televised interview if the Jewish state could assassinate Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah. Gantz advised Nasrallah ânot to sleep too tightâ. Turning to south Lebanon, where the Syrian-backed Hezbollah and Israeli troops often clash in a disputed border zone, the general said that âin case of a new escalation with Hezbollah, Syria will have to pay a heavy priceâ. Syria was supplying arms to âterrorist movementsâ, he charged. The general already warned on May 7 that any escalation would have âdisastrous consequencesâ for both Syria and Lebanon, after an Israeli soldier was killed in clashes with the Hezbollah militia.
After Israelâs assassination in March of Ahmed Yassin, leader of the Palestinian Islamic movement Hamas, Israelâs chief of staff Gen. Moshe Yaalon said that Nasrallah could also be next in the firing line. A Beirut newspaper, As-Safir, reported in mid-May that an Israeli-backed group plotting to kill Hezbollahâs secretary-general had been dismantled in Lebanon. |