Hezbollah Amasses Weaponry, Troops on Northern Border

From News From Jerusalem: 

July 12 marks the fourth anniversary of the beginning of Israel’s defensive war against Hezbollah, known as the Second Lebanon War.  Hezbollah, a terrorist group that is politically, financially, and militarily backed by Iran, is believed to have tripled its missile and rocket arsenal since the start of the war.

In the meantime, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) has failed in its responsibility to prevent Hezbollah from rearming following the Aug. 14, 2006 ceasefire that ended the war.

The Israeli military released aerial photographs on Thursday (July 8) of Al-Khiam village in southern Lebanon, located two miles (four km) from Israel’s border, which shows Hezbollah’s military buildup in more than 100 civilian villages. Information was also released that Hezbollah has approximately 20,000 militia and as many as 200 fighters stationed in every Shia village in southern Lebanon.

Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) spokeswoman Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich said July 8 that Hezbollah has “warehouses of rockets near mosques, schools, medical centres, in the middle of villages, and they look like any other building." She added, "They have taken the term 'human shields' to a new extreme." (View the video below for a demonstration).

Israel’s defensive war against Iran-backed Hezbollah began July 12, 2006, when a cell of the terrorist group in Lebanon infiltrated the internationally recognized border with Israel, fired on two IDF jeeps and detonated explosives nearby. Hezbollah killed eight Israeli soldiers in the attacks while at the same time firing thousands of rockets and mortar shells into northern Israeli communities.

Two Israeli reservists, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev – on a routine patrol of the Israeli side of the border - were kidnapped by Hezbollah in the initial attack on the IDF jeeps. Their remains were returned to Israel on July 16, 2008 in exchange for the release of convicted murderer Samir Kuntar, four other Lebanese terrorists and the bodies of dozens of other Palestinian and Lebanese terrorists.
A total of 44 Israeli civilians and 119 IDF soldiers were killed in the month-long war