"If Israel attacks Syria by any means, on the ground, in the air, our leadership ordered the armed forces to reply immediately"
Walid Muallem, Syrian foreign minister
SYRIA'S foreign minister yesterday offered to join militant group Hezbollah in its fight against Israel and said a regional war would be "most welcome" as more than 30 people in Israel and Lebanon were killed on one of the worst days since the conflict began.
Hezbollah launched a major barrage at northern Israel yesterday and a single missile killed 12 reservist soldiers in the kibbutz of Kfar Giladi in the Shiite militia's deadliest attack of the nearly one-month-old confrontation. Scores more were injured in numerous other attacks across northern Israel.
Meanwhile, Israeli air strikes killed 19 people in southern Lebanon, including six Lebanese soldiers, as fighting continued despite a US-French draft UN Security Council resolution to halt the hostilities.
Lebanon yesterday rejected the resolution and asked the UN Security Council to revise the draft to include a demand for the withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon.
But as the attempts at diplomacy continued, Syria's foreign minister, Walid Muallem, defiantly trumpeted his country's support for Hezbollah and warned that Syria was ready for "the possibility of a regional war if the Israeli aggression continues".
"If you wish, I'm ready to be a soldier at the disposal of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah [the Hezbollah leader]," he said.
He was speaking after crossing into neighbouring Lebanon in the first visit by a senior Syrian official since Damascus - under international and Lebanese pressure - ended a 29-year military presence there last year.
Asked if he feared the conflict in Lebanon could spill over into a regional war, Mr Muallem said: "Most welcome.
"If Israel attacks Syria by any means, on the ground, in the air, our leadership ordered the armed forces to reply immediately," he added.
Mr Muallem also lashed out at the draft UN resolution, describing it as a prescription "for the continuation of the war".
He said: "It's not fair for Lebanon, therefore it's a plan for the possibility of the eruption of civil war in Lebanon and nobody, nobody, nobody has anything to gain from that happening, except Israel."
Damascus has called up several reserve units in recent weeks and dispatched special forces and anti-aircraft units towards its border with Lebanon.
Syria has been jittery since Israeli jets buzzed Damascus early in the conflict and recently bombed Hezbollah positions and roads near the border.
Tensions soared on Friday, when 23 Syrian farm workers were killed by an Israeli air raid as they picked peaches in the village of Qaa in Lebanon's eastern Bekaa valley.
"This new massacre is a racist, fascist and terrorist act committed with American weapons," Syria's information minister, Mohsen Bilal, said.
Yesterday brought further death and destruction on both sides of the border, with Israel experiencing its worst day so far.
A Katyusha rocket fired by Hezbollah guerrillas hit a crowd of Israeli soldiers in Kfar Giladi, killing 12 of them and wounding ten others.
The attack was part of a barrage of 35 missiles in that area within half an hour that caused fires with huge plumes of smoke and damaged a synagogue.
An official from Kibbutz Kfar Giladi said he had warned the troops to take cover before the explosion, but that they had ignored him.
There were reports that a brigadier-general, Guy Zur, was among those wounded in the blast.
Eli Peretz, in charge of the local ambulance services, said: "An entire group was hit, some very severely.
Those lightly wounded fled in all directions. We evacuated the seriously wounded by helicopter. Since the beginning of this war, and in fact in all my years of service, I have never seen a worse incident."
Meanwhile, George W. Bush sits in the White House patting himself on the back for a job well done.
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