The exchange of rhetoric between Hezbollah and Israel escalated further yesterday, as a senior official for the organization, Hashem Safi a-Din, predicted that the "war of 2006 will seem like a joke" next to Hezbollah's reaction if Israel should attack.
Deputy foreign minister Daniel Ayalon said that, "if one hair on the head of an Israeli representative or tourist is harmed, we will see Hezbollah as responsible and it will bear the most dire consequences."
Israel's northern border has seen a rise in tensions since mid-July, when an explosion occurred in a Hezbollah munitions dump in the south of Lebanon.
Commenting on Israel Radio on the arrest of a group in Cairo suspected of plotting to assassinate Israel's ambassador to Egypt, Ayalon said that "we know it's not just Egypt ... we know that Hezbollah has tried and is trying to collect intelligence and to carry out some actions ... it has had its failures but it keeps trying. So it's important to put things on the table and send this warning to Lebanon, which is eventually responsible for Hezbollah, that it will also be responsible for any harm it may suffer if Israelis are targeted."
A-Din said that while Hezbollah was not interested in war, the organization was on alert and prepared for any eventuality, including conflict. He was commenting on Ehud Barak's statements last Wednesday, in which the defense minister said that Israel was "not ready to accept a situation in which a neighboring country has in its government and parliament a milita that has its own policy and 40,000 rockets aimed at Israel."
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