JIBCHIT, Lebanon, 28 July 2003 — The head of Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement warned here yesterday that his militia would try to capture more Israeli soldiers unless Lebanese prisoners held in Israel are released. “We are going to give a last chance for negotiations to exchange prisoners between us and Israel,” Hassan Nasrallah said.
“If this chance is not taken, we will consider the number of Israeli prisoners we hold is not enough and work night and day to increase the number,” he told a crowd of Hezbollah supporters in the southern village of Jibchit.
Hezbollah claims it has been holding four Israelis since October 2000, three of them soldiers captured in a disputed border region. Israel is holding about 20 Lebanese, including Hezbollah chiefs Mustafa Dirani and Sheikh Abdel Karim Obeid. Nasrallah’s speech was delivered on the 14th anniversary of Israel’s capture of Sheikh Obeid.
Meanwhile, Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk Shara said yesterday complying with a US request to dismantle the Hezbollah would revive Israeli interference in Lebanon’s internal affairs. He also condemned the US administration of President George W. Bush as “stupid and violent”.
“The Hezbollah question is a Lebanese affair. But to dismantle it before concluding peace in the Middle East would allow Israel to meddle in Lebanese affairs and reawaken ... civil war,” Shara told reporters in Damascus. Since the end of the US-led war in Iraq, the United States has stepped up pressure on Syria, the main power broker in its smaller neighbor Lebanon.
US officials have branded the deployment of around 20,000 Syrian soldiers in Lebanon an “occupation” and urged Damascus to halt support for the Hezbollah.
