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The geography of the accident Tuesday, Aug. 26, belied the reiterated claims of Israeli ministers and UN officials that Hizballah’s rockets had been pushed back from the Lebanese-Israeli border, under the terms of the Resolution 1701 ceasefire which ended the 2006 Lebanon War.Jamal Amin Salah, 51, a Hizballah operations executive, stood on the rooftop of a building at the Lebanese Yaroun village, less than half a kilometer from the Israeli border. He was discussing with his men how far inside Israeli territory the rockets installed at the launch pads in the village could reach, when he fell to his death.DEBKAfile’s military sources confirm that, not only has Hizballah returned to its old positions on the Israeli border - contradicting statements by prime minister Ehud Olmert and defense minister Ehud Barak - but the Iran-backed Shiite terrorists are working feverishly on the construction of a new line of fortified military positions, including rocket-launching pads, right on top of the Israeli border fence.Neither Israeli Defense Forces nor UN peacekeepers have interfered with this barefaced violation of international agreements. Wednesday, Aug. 27, Israel’s security cabinet convened to discuss homeland defenses in an emergency.Dep. defense minister, Matan Vilnai, told an interviewer that every corner of Israel was now within range of enemy missiles. He reaffirmed that Syrian and Hizballah arsenals hold tens of thousands of rockets and missiles, which he described as an even greater danger than Iranian missiles. He said the new National Homeland Defense Authority which he heads would soon present proposals for improving security on the home front. They would be “primarily legislative,” he said.That is the root of the problem, say DEBKAfile’s military sources.New laws will not keep the civilian population safe from missile attack; nor will any purely defensive measures. The Israeli army’s passivity, enforced by the government, has left Syria and Hizballah free to amass tens of thousands of missiles and constantly augment their fortified launching sites in places like Yaroun.The 40,000 missiles now in Hizballah’s hands were delivered by ships and trucks across routes starting in Syria and ending in Lebanon. Senior military sources ask: Why were Israeli forces not instructed to destroy these convoys and blow up the missile dumps? Surely not because of the farcical indirect Israel-Syrian “peace talks.” Israeli ministers talked Wednesday about protecting the population by “legislation,” while admitting that every part of the country is now vulnerable to missile attack.As in the days of Noah...
