Israel Warns Syria, Lebanon Not to "Play With Fire"Israeli Foreign Minister David Levy again warned Syria and Lebanon on Tuesday not to "play with fire" after the Israeli troop withdrawal from south Lebanon.Briefing foreign ambassadors to Israel at the King David Hotel on the Israeli pullout, Levy said there are attempts to recruit certain forces inside Lebanon and incite them into making adventures against Israel. The fresh warning came six days after Israel completed its pullout from south Lebanon early Wednesday, ending 22 years of military occupation there. "We warn against playing with fire," Levy said. Israel has repeatedly threatened harsh reprisals against Lebanon, and its main power border Syria, if it comes under attack after troop withdrawal. Any cross-border attack against Israel, said Prime Minister Ehud Barak, will be considered as an "act of war." The border area was quiet on Tuesday, after Lebanese government restricted civilians' entrance into the border area vacated by Israeli troops. Thousands of Lebanese flocked to the south in the past days to see by themselves the newly liberated and celebrate Israeli pullout. Protesters jeered at Israeli border guards, hurled stones at the other side of the border, or even pressed into Israeli territory, raising tension along the new, fenced borderline. Meanwhile, Levy accused Iran of continuing weapons supply to Hezbollah, the spearhead of Lebanese resistance against Israeli occupation in the past two decades. Hezbollah, or Party of God, backed by both Iran and Syria, has vowed to continue fighting until Israel gives up the disputed Shebaa Farms and releases all Lebanese detainees from its jails. Lebanon and Syria said Shebaa Farms, located at the western foothills of the Mount Hermon now under Israeli occupation, belong to Lebanon and should be returned during the Israeli withdrawal. Israel said the area is part of the Golan Heights it captured from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war, whose fate should be decided during peace talks with Syria after they resume. Levy said the United Nations has affirmed that most of the Shebaa area was not part of Lebanon and Israel need not include it in the pullout. The Israeli-Syrian peace talks stalled again in January after the two sides held two rounds of talks in the United States since last December, due to Israel's refusal to promise to hand over to Syria the entire Golan Heights. |
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