FROM ISREAL TODAY

IDF: Hizballah deployed across southern Lebanon

The Israeli army on Wednesday declassified and presented to the press hundreds of photographs, maps and video clips showing that the Lebanese terrorist militia has deployed inside some 160 villages throughout southern Lebanon in preparation for another war with Israel.

As an example, army officials displayed evidence that a number of buildings in the village of el-Khiam, which lies just 2.5 miles from the border with Israel, have become weapons caches and command-and-control centers. Additionally, heavy explosives have been positioned throughout the town as booby-traps.

The Israelis estimated that some 20,000 Hizballah fighters are now stationed in these villages in order to repulse a future Israeli land incursion. They are also in possession of Hizballah's arsenal of some 40,000 rockets and missiles, 800 of which could be fired every day into Israel in the event of open conflict.

The army has already dispatched a team to the United Nations in New York to show the evidence and demand that the world body enforce its own resolutions regarding Hizballah.

UN Security Council Resolution 1701 that brought an end to the 2006 Second Lebanon War called for the disarming of Hizballah and the removal of its forces from south of the Litani River. But Lebanon has refused to disarm the group, which also holds sway over the parliament and government, and has done little to curtail the free movement of Hizballah forces in the south of the country.

Lebanon's refusal to comply is no surprise. What most Israelis are angered by is the UN's continued apathy or impotence when it comes to preventing flare-ups along Israel's northern border. Resolution 1701 enlarged the UN peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon to 13,000, but still Hizballah has managed to become stronger and pose an even greater threat to the Jewish state.