Hezbollah Threatens Israeli Wells
Relations between Israel and Lebanon, which have a shared border along the northern part of Israel and southern Lebanon, have sharply deteriorated in the past few days.
Lebanon has two complaints against Israel: that it is building a high wall along the border in order to prevent possible attacks by Hezbollah, the strongest military power in Lebanon, on Israeli communities; and that it is taking Block 9 in the Lebanese maritime zone, about 900 km² of supposedly rich reserves of oil and gas.
Hezbollah is considered a terrorist organisation by the US, Israel, The Arab League and others. The UK, Australia and the EU consider its military wing a terrorist organisation.
A former head of the Military Intelligence Directorate at the IDF and now the director of the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in Tel Aviv, Amos Yadlin, said in a television interview that Israel has drawn a maritime boundary between the two countries at an azimuth of 290 degrees (direction north-west) from the coast while Lebanon delineates the borderline at an azimuth of 270 degrees (direction west) into the sea. The 20 degree delta is the area of ​​contention. Yadlin did not explain why Israel requires a boundary line at 290 degrees azimuth.
The confrontation, for the time being, between Israel and Hezbollah/Lebanon is exacerbated by the rocket threat posed by Hezbollah to Israel. According to assessments by Israeli security experts, Hezbollah possesses over 100,000 rockets, capable of causing great damage to Israel. Israel possesses a much higher regular army capability, which allows some Israeli leaders to declare the return of Lebanon to the "Stone Age" if Hezbollah tries to fulfill its threats. Israel today regards Hezbollah, which it defines as a terrorist organisation, and Lebanon as one entity.
Gas facilities under threat
As part of its psychological warfare, Hezbollah has begun to threaten damage to Israel's natural gas facilities in the Mediterranean. Damage to production facilities, if successful, will not only be an operational and symbolic success, but will also paralyse or severely damage the activity of the electricity sector in Israel. Over half of the gas for that sector comes from the Tamar field, which has no backup or replacement. It is possible that Israel's gas supply might halt, in case of severe damage to Tamar's infrastructure.
In a video clip Hezbollah recently uploaded to the internet, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah threatens to hit the gas facilities, while missiles are fired at gas platforms that are shown damaged, crashing and burning.
Lebanon's president Michel Aoun, the prime minister Saad Hariri and Speaker Nabih Berri issued a harsh statement in which they attacked Israel for building the wall and its claims of ownership of Block 9. "We examined the data before us regarding the consequences of the threats from Israel. This is a clear violation of Security Council Resolution 1701 and a direct threat to the stability of the border area since the decision was made in August 2006, in co-operation with the Lebanese army and Unifil forces," the statement said.
The participants agreed to continue the effort on all levels to prevent Israel from building the concrete fence inside Lebanese territory. Israel claims the fence is being built in |Israeli territory.
Steinitz Response
Israel's energy minister Yuval Steinitz said that the Israeli response to Hezbollah's activity would be very severe. "I did not need the explicit threats [of the gas facilities]," Steinitz told Ynet in an interview. "We see the threat from Lebanon, the threat posed by sea missiles and the threat of ballistic missiles, sometimes accurate enough to damage the environment of such facilities or our power plants. Israel is more or less the world champion in missile defence technologies - Iron Dome, Arrow, Magic Wand, Lightning 8 and other things that we will develop over the next few years. However we are certainly concerned and are not sitting idle on this issue."