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Hezbollah has turned Lebanon into a powderkeg, Israel's president says, as the foreign ministry complained to the UN over the explosion of a rocket in a "Hezbollah arms depot."
President Shimon Peres says: "It's not Israel that is endangering Lebanon, but rather Hezbollah, just as Hamas is endangering the Palestinians."
"There is no reason for Israel not to make peace with Lebanon," he said, adding that Israel's northern neighbour "could be, with the help of this peace, the Switzerland of the Middle East. But it's clear to everyone who is preventing this."
His comments to journalists during a visit to northern Israel came a day after a rocket exploded in the home of Hezbollah official Abdel Nasser Issa in a village near Lebanon's southern coastal city of Tyre. Residents say Issa had found the rocket by a river near his home and taken it back to his garage. He was trying to dismantle the device when it blew up and wounded him, a security official said.
A Hezbollah statement confirmed the incident but denied local media reports that five people had perished. The army also said there were no fatalities and that one person was wounded.
