A Lebanese-Israeli water conflict threatens to boil over

The Lebanese side, however, is marked by a barren landscape of rocky hills, sun-bleached grass and dusty olive groves. The international community has encouraged the cash-strapped Lebanese government to pay greater attention to the economic needs of southern Lebanon, hoping that increased prosperity in the area will weaken Hizbullah, which effectively controls the border district.

"The delivery of drinking water through a pipeline network to southern Lebanese villages is just the sort of thing Israel ought to applaud for purely strategic reasons," says a Washington-based analyst closely involved in a US bid to mediate the water dispute. But Lebanon should have provided prior information on its plans to draw water from the Wazzani springs, the analyst adds. "In the absence of accurate notification, Israel will always, without fail, assume the worst and act accordingly, especially now that most Israelis simply assume that Lebanon's no more and no less than Hizbullah," he says. In fact, Hizbullah became involved in the dispute only after Israel threatened to attack the new pumping station.

On the eve of a ceremony last week to inaugurate the station, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, Hizbullah's secretary-general, warned that his fighters would respond "within minutes" if Israel attacked the water project.

And there are growing signals that the group's readiness could soon be tested. Analysts maintain that despite the general calm, Israel cannot live indefinitely with the presence of a well-armed and motivated guerrilla force poised along its northern border. Dore Gold, an adviser to Mr. Sharon, has likened Hizbullah's alleged deployment of thousands of Iranian-supplied rockets along the border as Israel's own "Cuban missile crisis."

A report published by Tel Aviv university last week said that Israel may have to "act forcefully" against Hizbullah to re-establish the deterrent it lost by withdrawing unilaterally from southern Lebanon.

Last month, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage described Hizbullah as "the A-team of terrorism," ranking it above the Al Qaeda network of Osama bin Laden. That and similar statements by leading administration officials have heightened speculation that Washington may greenlight an Israeli military operation to try and neutralize Hizbullah once and for all, possibly in coordination with an invasion of Iraq.

"It would be convenient for us to do the job while the Americans are at work in Iraq," says an Israeli army officer.

"We can't continue to live here if we back down from every challenge that the Hizbullah throws at us," he adds. "It's true that we will suffer heavy casualties from [Hizbullah's] rocket attacks, hundreds if not thousands of civilians may die. But Hizbullah has to take into account that it will cease to exist after they get off a few rounds and nobody will rush to protect them."

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