OCCUPIED JERUSALEM/UNITED NATIONS (AFP)
Syria is supplying the Shiite Hezbollah militia in Lebanon with rockets in violation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak charged on Tuesday.
"Resolution 1701 is not being applied. The transfer of rockets from Syria to Lebanon is continuing and Hezbollah's military build-up is continuing," Barak's office quoted him as saying during a visit to an Israeli air force base.
"I think the Security Council has to act and see how the resolution is applied and enforced," the former chief of staff said.
In a U.N. statement read out by the council's president for April, South African Ambassador to the U.N. Dumisani Kumalo, the council said it "reiterates its commitment to the full implementation of all provisions of resolution 1701."
The council "takes note of the progress as well as of the concerns expressed" by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on the resolution's implementation in his latest report on the matter.
The resolution, which put an end to a 34-day war between Israel and Hezbollah in August 2006, demanded the pullout of the Israeli army from south Lebanon and its replacement by a U.N.-backed Lebanese army deployment.
The resolution called for the disarming of all militias -- an allusion to Hezbollah as well as to Palestinian militant groups -- and the prevention of illegal arms sales and smuggling operations in Lebanon.
Israel launched a massive offensive after the July 12, 2006, capture of two of its soldiers in a cross-border raid by Hezbollah which killed more than 1,000 Lebanese civilians and almost 50 Israeli civilians. |
