Israel bracing for strikes

JERUSALEM Israel is bracing for threatened retaliation by Hezbollah over charges it assassinated one of the Lebanese militia’s top commanders, with fears running high of a high-profile attack abroad. Hizbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah declared “open war” on Israel in a fiery speech at the funeral in Beirut on Thursday of Imad Mughnieh, a shadowy figure on America’s most wanted list who was killed in a Damascus car bombing. Israel has denied any involvement in the assassination, but Nasrallah said that by killing Mughnieh, it had taken its battle with Hizbollah beyond Lebanon’s borders and should therefore expect attacks anywhere. “The big… question arising from the killing in Damascus is not whether Hezbollah will respond, but how and when,” Israeli columnist Yossi Melman wrote in the Haaretz newspaper. Mughnieh, who was killed on Tuesday, was wanted for his suspected involvement in a string of anti-Jewish attacks including the 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, which killed 29 people, and the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community centre there that killed 85. Israel has since stepped up security at home and abroad, fearing reprisals from Hizbollah  the Shiite Muslim group it battled in a devastating war across the border in Lebanon in 2006. “Israel is a strong state, the Jewish people are strong and our answer to terror is clear,” Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said in Washington. “Statements by this or that terrorist won’t change this and we are not panicking.”

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