With the support of Iran and Syria, Hizballah has strengthened its military capabilities and can now strike deep within Israel’s heartland. Despite an enhanced presence of UN peacekeeping forces, the terrorist army now possesses an arsenal of more than 40,000 rockets—nearly three times its stockpile prior to the 2006 war with Israel. As Hizballah rebuilds and steps up its calls for Israel’s elimination, the U.N. forces in Lebanon and the larger international community should take further action to disarm Hizballah in order to prevent another outbreak of war and to help stabilize Lebanon.

With support from Iran and Syria, Hizballah has amassed a larger weapons arsenal than before the 2006 Lebanon war.

• Israeli officials report that Hizballah has amassed more than 40,000 long- and short-range rockets deployed both north and south of the Litani River.
  
  
• Hizballah’s growing rocket arsenal is nearly three times more than the amount the terrorist army had before the war with Israel in 2006.
  
  
• Israeli defense officials report that Hizballah has acquired new Iranian rockets with a range of 185 miles, allowing it to target all major Israeli population centers.
  
  
• Lt. Gen. Michael Maples, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in February that “Lebanese Hezbollah continues to receive weapons, training and resources from Iran.”
  
  
• Hizballah sends some 300 men each month to Iran for terrorist training. A report published in The Independent (UK) in April stated that nearly 4,500 Hizballah fighters have participated in three-month training sessions on live-fire ammunition and rocket exercises.

Hizballah has increased its calls for Israel’s elimination, declaring “open war” against Israel.

• Following the assassination of Imad Mughniyeh, one of the world’s most sought-after terrorist masterminds, Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah declared, “We will wage war [against Israel] without any preconditions,” adding, “The disappearance of Israel is an inevitable fact.”
  
  
• During a memorial to mark the 40th day following the assassination, Nasrallah echoed statements by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, proclaiming, “Can Israel be eliminated? Yes and a thousand yeses, Israel can be eliminated.”
  
  
• At a ceremony marking the beginning of Hizballah’s annual “week of the resistance” at the end of February to honor dead Hizballah leaders, Nasrallah warned Israel, “We will kill you in the fields, we will kill you in the cities, we will fight you like you have never seen before.”

U.N. forces in southern Lebanon are ignoring Hizballah’s rearming and failing to confront Hizballah terrorists.

• On at least four separate occasions in the last six months, U.N. forces identified armed Hizballah operatives and weapons convoys but failed to intercede in accord with U.N. rules and to submit full statements on the incidents to the U.N. Security Council, according to a report in the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz.
  
  
• On the night of March 30, U.N. troops on patrol in southern Lebanon stopped a truck carrying weapons and ammunition, but let it go after armed Hizballah men threatened the troops at gunpoint. UNIFIL declined to report the incident at the time and refused to use force to disarm the terrorists as required by its mandate.
  
  
• Under U.N. Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 Israel-Hizballah war, U.N. forces in Lebanon are specifically authorized to “take all necessary action… to ensure that its area of operations is not utilized for hostile activities of any kind.”
  
  
• UNIFIL has not addressed Hizballah’s maintenance of an independent weapons and communications infrastructure. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon identified this infrastructure as having “adverse effects” on the ability of the Lebanese government “to assert its exclusive control over the entire territory of Lebanon.”

The international community must take further action to ensure that Hizballah is disarmed and cannot threaten Israel.

• U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701 established an arms embargo and called for the disarming of all militias in Lebanon, including Hizballah.
  
  
• Recognizing the continued threat that Hizballah’s weapons pose to the State of Israel and to the stability of the region, the Security Council on April 15 called for “greater progress” and the need to “intensify… efforts” to implement Resolution 1701.
  
  
• The mandate of U.N. forces in Lebanon should be expanded to allow for the monitoring of the Lebanese-Syrian border in order to stop the flow of arms from Iran and Syria to Hizballah. The mandate should also be expanded to allow forces to patrol Hizballah strongholds north of the Litani River.
  
  
• The United States should hold Syria and Iran accountable for violating Resolution 1701’s arms embargo against Hizballah by bringing the full force of U.S. sanctions to bear against both nations. Foreign companies continuing to conduct business in those countries should be sanctioned.