Report: Syria supplying long-range missiles to Hezbollah

Syria has supplied the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah with about a quarter of its arsenal of middle- and long-range missiles, the Kuwaiti newspaper Al Jarida on Thursday quoted Israeli security sources as saying.

According to the report, the sources said since Syria does not wish to enter into a direct conflict with Israel, it is using Hezbollah and the Palestinian militant group Hamas as proxies to harass it.

The report came after the Israel Defense Forces on Tuesday released footageof people, possibly Hezbollah operatives, removing something resembling a 4-meter-long missile from a building where a Hezbollah arms depot exploded on Monday.

A senior military source said on Tuesday that Syria has made a clear strategic decision to make available to Hezbollah every type of military hardware in its arsenal.

According to Thursday's report in Al Jarida, Iranian and Syrian officers are training Hezbollah guerillas in how to fire the new missiles, and how to operate Russian- and Chinese-made early warning radar stations in Lebanon. The system has reportedly also undergone Iranian development.

During the 2006 Second Lebanon War, Hezbollah launched nearly 4,000 missiles into Israel, killing dozens of Israelis and causing significant damage.

Meanwhile, a Lebanese MP has said that the IDF video of the weapons cache is proof that Israel is still spying on his country, and constitutes a violation of the United Nations resolution that ended the war. The lawmaker called for Lebanon to submit a formal complaint on the matter to the UN.

Hezbollah has categorically denied that it removed arms from the site, and has released a video of its own that purportedly shows office equipment being moved from the building instead.