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Gen. Amidror: Hizballah's Recovery Timetable

[UPI] Joshua Brilliant - Hizballah needs "at least two years" to rebuild the capabilities it lost in the war with Israel, which is why it is holding fire now, Maj.-Gen. (res.) Yaakov Amidror told foreign diplomats Wednesday at a briefing organized by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. Amidror maintains the war enhanced Israel's deterrence. The decision to launch the war, to continue fighting despite the barrage of some 4,000 Hizballah rockets hitting northern Israel, "made everyone around us...understand that there are some red lines that if (they) will be crossed, by the Syrians, or the Palestinians or the Lebanese, the retaliation...will be (dis)proportional on purpose." "As a little country fighting terrorists, guerrilla organizations and other states, we cannot allow ourselves to react proportionally and that is a very important message to the people around us. They understand it. We know they understand it," Amidror stressed. Israelis realized they had erred by not reacting to Hizballah provocations since May 2000 when Israel unilaterally withdrew from Lebanon. That is not going to happen again, he predicted. Israel identified 440 dead guerrillas by name and address, and experience shows that Israeli figures are half to two-thirds of the enemy's real casualties. Therefore, Amidror estimated, Hizballah's death toll might be as high as 700. Hizballah launched three unmanned drones, each carrying 45 kilos of TNT. Their range was enough to reach Tel Aviv or Jerusalem, but one crashed into the sea because of a technical failure and the air force downed two others, he said.
2006-09-08 01:00:00
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