Israel’s Aman military intelligence does not think Syria or Lebanon’s Hizbullah will carry out a large-scale offensive against Israel in 2008, an Israeli daily said on Sunday. Aman said Israel had regained its so-called force of dissuasion during last year’s 34-day war with Hizbullah, launched by the Jewish state after a deadly cross-border raid in July in which two Israeli troops were captured.
It also believes Israel demonstrated its ability to strike in the north, an allusion to a raid in Syria on September 6 in which Israeli warplanes bombed what media reports have said were possible nuclear targets deep within Syrian territory. In Gaza, Hamas forces “have organized like a veritable army into battalions and regiments” with the aim of inflicting the maximum casualties on Israel should it launch a wide-scale offensive in the territory, the report said. The Aman report was cited by the mass-selling Yediot Ahronot daily. – AFP
