Four years after the inconclusive war in Leb­anon, tensions remain high, with sabre-rattling emanating from the combatants, Israel and Hez­bollah.

United Nations Security Council resolution 1701, which formally ended the month-long war and brought a  stronger UN peace­­keeping force to southern Leb­anon, has ushered in  a period of stability. But in contravention of the resolution, as UN Sec­retary General Bai Ki Moon complained recently, Hez­bollah maintains “a substantial military capacity and refuses to dis­arm,” while Israel con­ducts daily overflights of Leb­anon, some of which Lebanon has militarily challenged.

Amid these violations, Israel and Hezbollah have issued a litany of threats and counter-threats, Israel has accused Syria of providing Hezbollah with Scud missiles, the Lebanese and Israeli armies have traded blows in a rare border clash and Leb­anon has arrested still more of its citizens as Israeli spies.

Not surprisingly, the UN has warn­ed that a new war may break out.

Hezbollah, which triggered the Second Leb­anon War with an unprovoked am­bush on an Is­raeli patrol inside Israeli territory and then upped the ante by firing al­most 4,000 rockets into Israel, has caused much of the tension along Israel’s border with Lebanon.

An Islamic fundamentalist group aligned with Syria and Iran and utterly opposed to Israel’s existence, Hezbollah is a formidable enemy. Having apparently recovered from the blows Israel inflicted in the last war, Hezbollah has rebuilt its military infrastructure, acquired more than 40,000 rockets, placed mis­sile launchers in more than 100 villages near Israel and regained control over southern Leb­anon despite the presence of thousands of UN troops there.

Although Hezbollah’s canny leader, Has­san Nasrallah, keeps a low profile out of fear of being assassinated by Israel, he has not hesitated to issue a succession of highly inflammatory anti-Israel verbal blasts.

Having already threatened to strike Ben-Gurion Airport if Israel hits Beirut’s airport in any future conflict (as it did in 1968, 1982 and 2006), Nasrallah warned recently that his fighters would attack Israeli ships in the event of an Is­raeli naval blockade on Lebanon.

Nasrallah’s threats are taken seriously in Israel.

During the Second Lebanon War, Hezbollah rocket barrages virtually paralyzed northern Israel, bringing normal life to a standstill as Israeli civilians scurried into bomb shelters, while Hezbollah gun­­ners struck an Israeli navy boat, nearly sinking it.

Hezbollah, which has upgraded its capabilities since then due to Syrian and Iranian assistance, currently possesses rockets that can reach Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, according to Israel’s outgoing chief of staff, Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi.

Hezbollah’s armoury is such that it has more missiles than most governments in the world today, U.S. Secretary of Defence Robert Gates observed several months ago.

Last November, in what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described as a “preventive operation,” Israeli commandos board­ed a vessel, the Francop, in the Mediterranean Sea, carrying 600 tons of weapons bound from Iran to Hezbollah.

Israeli officials said that the cargo contained a trove of Katyusha rockets, mortars, hand grenades and munitions.

Though the scale of the seizure surpassed Israel’s interception of a ship carrying 50 tons of Iranian weapons to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip in 2002, Israel said that the Francop’s cargo represented “a drop in the sea” compared with the quantities of Iranian military equipment that have been transferred to Hez­bollah since 2006.

Of similar concern to Israel, Syria has reportedly dispatched Scud missiles to Hezbollah. If true, Hezbollah would be in a far better position to bombard Israeli cities in the next war. Syria claims that such shipments are a fig­ment of Israel’s imagination, but Damascus’ denials have fallen on deaf ears in Israel.

In the face of Hezbollah’s rearmament program, its inclusion in the Lebanese cabinet and Nasrallah’s threats to bomb Israel’s main airport and sink Israeli ships, Is­rael’s defence minister, Ehud Barak, has issued a series of threats aimed at the Lebanese government.

Late last year, Barak declared that Leb­anon rather than Hezbollah would be targeted if Hezbollah succeeded in escalating ten­sion on Israel’s northern border. “Our target will be the state of Lebanon,” he said.

Last March, only months after a handful of Kat­yusha rockets fired by radical Palestinian organizations landed harmlessly in the Galilee, Barak said that Israel would hold the Lebanese government responsible for Hez­bollah aggression.

Two months ago, Barak delivered his third  warning, saying that if Israel is subjected to rocket attacks, Lebanon would suffer as well. As he put it, “We will see it as legitimate to hit any target that belongs to the Lebanese state, not just to Hezbollah.”

Lebanon, whose roads and power stations were bombed by Israel in  the 2006 war and whose independence is still dependent on Syria’s goodwill, has put up a show of defiance in response to Barak’s comments.

Lebanon’s prime minister, Saad Harii, whose father, Rafik, was assassinated by Sy­rian agents in 2005, has asserted that his government would support Hezbollah in a new war: “We will stand against Israel. We will stand with our own people.” Meanwhile, the Lebanese president, Michael Suleiman, has said that he will refrain from calling on Hez­bollah to relinquish its weapons.

Last week, a major Lebanese Christian po­l­itician, Samir Geagea, urged Hezbollah to fold its forces into the Lebanese army. But Hezbollah rejected the proposal, leaving the volatile issue simmering and unsettled.

As if this issue was not serious enough, the Lebanese army exacerbated tensions on Aug. 3 by opening fire on an Israeli out­post, killing a high-ranking Israeli reserve officer. Lebanon claimed that Israeli forces had stray­ed into its sovereign territory. By way of reaction, Israel bombed a Leb­anese army position, killing two soldiers and a journalist. Israel believes that the incident was initiated by Lebanese Shiite officers under the sway of Hezbollah.

Blaming Lebanon for the lethal exchange, the worst such skirmish in four years, the UN and the United Sta­tes said that Israeli forces had not entered Lebanon.

 A few days later, an Israeli navy vessel fired on a Leb­anese fishing boat. Israel claim­ed that the ship had sailed into a “restricted zone” and failed to heed warnings to leave the area.

On Aug. 9,  the U.S. Congress suspended a $100-million military assistance package to Lebanon, citing the Aug. 3 incident. After the Lebanese president vowed to acquire arms from “friendly countries,” Iran, eager to deep­en its clout in Beirut, offered to help Lebanon.

Two weeks ago, the UN reported that Is­raeli and Lebanese officers had met in an attempt to defuse tensions. The UN hopes that Israel’s international boundary with Lebanon, known as the Blue Line, can be more clearly demarcated. Apart from this gnawing prob­lem, Israel and Lebanon have yet to defuse two territorial disputes – the fi­nal status of the di­vided town of Ghajar, which straddles the border, and the ultimate fate of Shaaba Farms, which is also claimed by Syria. In recent weeks, further tension has flared over the ownership of natural gas fields in the Mediterranean Sea.

Even if these problems are resolved, Leb­anon is still reeling from stunning disclosures that dozens of Lebanese citizens, including army officers and politicians, were recruited by Israel as spies prior to 2006. Tellingly, Israel has not commented on the arrests.