April 2, 2000
BEIRUT, Lebanon — There will be no security for Israel after it withdraws
from Lebanon, a deputy secretary general of Hezbollah warned Sunday.
Speaking to a crowd in Beirut, Naim Kassem said his group would not be
deterred by Israel’s threats to strike Lebanese infrastructure in retaliation
for guerrilla attacks.
“If Israel is promising us a hot summer, it knows very well that its summer
will be hotter because we are ready to fight back and what Israel is trying to
scare us with is what scares Israel most.”
The Israeli government has promised to withdraw Israeli troops from Lebanon by
July. There are some 1,500 Israeli soldiers, supported by about 2,500 militiamen
of the allied South Lebanon Army, in an Israeli-occupied zone in southern Lebanon.
“Israel can fire its missiles and use its jets to raid and shell others, but
it cannot stop others from using their own missiles, nor can it gain political
acquisitions. Collapses is what Israel will face and changes in the area is what
the future holds,” Kassem said.
The Iranian-backed Hezbollah, which attacks the occupied zone on a daily
basis, has refused to say whether it will continue its campaign against Israeli
troops after they withdraw behind the international border.
“Even with a withdrawal from every inch of the occupied Lebanese territories,
Israel will not have security guarantees because it is still involved in the
Palestinian question and it is still occupying (Syria’s) Golan heights,” Kassem
said, referring to the Syrian plateau that Israel captured in the 1967
Arab-Israeli War.
“It has problems in Jerusalem and many other unresolved problems,” he added.
