Lebanon to use seized Hizbullah arms to fight Israel
Country’s defense minister says weapons, including Grad rockets, will be used in case of any future violation of Lebanese sovereignty by Jewish state; 'We are still in a confrontation with the enemy,' senior Hizbullah member says
The Lebanese army will use weapons seized from the Shiite group Hizbullah to fight Israel in case of any future violation of Lebanese sovereignty, Defense Minister Elias Murr said.
"The truck and its content are now with the Lebanese army in southern Lebanon," Murr said in reference to a truck carrying Hizbullah arms -- including Grad rockets -- seized east of Beirut on Thursday.
"If Israel carries out another violation, we will use these weapons to confront it," he told reporters on Friday after a meeting with the commander of the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon, Major General Claudio Graziano.
Murr said he told Graziano that "the Lebanese army deployed in southern Lebanon has orders to confront Israeli forces in case of any new violation" of Lebanese sovereignty.
Lebanese and Israeli troops clashed across the border on Wednesday for the first time in decades, causing no casualties. The incident was sparked by Israeli sappers moving towards the border to clear unexploded ordnance.
'We are still in a confrontation with the enemy'
UN chief Ban Ki-Moon called for restraint, saying the clashes breached the ceasefire that ended Israel's devastating war against Hizbullah last year.
Hizbullah senior official Mohamad Yazbeck reiterated on Friday that the seized truck was carrying munitions destined for his group's fighters and asked for the weaponry to be returned.
"The security and judicial authorities should return the truck which was carrying arms for the Resistance from the (eastern) Bekaa to the south," he said at Friday prayers in the eastern city of Baalbek.
"The Resistance did not breach any agreement by transporting these arms ... in line with the 'ministerial declaration' of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, which recognized the right to resist Israeli occupation," he said.
"We are still in a confrontation with the enemy which continues to occupy parts of our land and continues to hold Lebanese detainees," he said.
Lebanon claims sovereignty over the Shebaa Farms along the Lebanon-Syria-Israeli borders which Israel captured from Syria during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and then annexed along with the rest of the Golan Heights.
Hizbullah was the only armed group which was not asked to surrender its weapons after the country's 1975-1990 civil war because it was considered a "resistance group" then fighting Israel's occupation of Lebanese territory.
UN Security Council resolutions have called for the disarming of all militias in Lebanon.
