Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned on Tuesday that the next war with Lebanon would involve attacks on Israel's cities, and threatened that the Jewish state would hit back "harder than before." In 2006 Hizbullah fired almost 4,000 rockets at northern Israel during a monthlong war, reaching cities as far south as Haifa and Tiberias.

Olmert warned that now that Hizbullah is the "dominant" force in Lebanon, Israel will hit back "harder than before." Olmert added that the Jewish state did not use all means to respond in 2006, but "if Lebanon becomes a Hizbullah state, then we won't have any restrictions in this regard."

He did not elaborate.

Olmert was speaking during a visit Tuesday to the Israeli military command that prepares the civilian sector for attacks and deals with the aftermath. His remarks were released in a statement by his office.

In a speech last Thursday, Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah had said keeping the militant group's arsenal a "secret" is part of its battle against Israel and that his group won't be frightened by Israeli threats to attack Lebanon. Nasrallah made a point of not disclosing whether Hizbullah now has anti-aircraft missile systems that could stand up to Israeli air raids.

Senior Israeli officials have warned recently that Hizbullah has reinforced its arsenal in defiance of UN Resolution 1701.

In another development, Israeli Defense Minister and Labor Party Chairman Ehud Barak said he will try to make the failures of the Kadima-led government during the summer 2006 war the main issue of his campaign in the next general election, sources close to him told The Jerusalem Post on Monday.

Barak will will try to take advantage of the fact that although Labor was in the coalition during the war, he himself was abroad for most of the conflict and not implicated in its failures. Barak's associates said he intended to use such a strategy no matter who won the September 17 Kadima Party primary.

"There will be public debate on the Second Lebanon War and its results, on the way the war ended, on UN Resolution and its impact on the country," Barak said at a meeting of the Labor faction at the party's Tel Aviv headquarters. "The time for such integral public debate will come soon."

In separate developments, Israeli media reported that a man was arrested on Monday near the Lebanese border on suspicion of being involved in cross-border drug smuggling.

In the environs of Kibbutz Sasa, an Israel Defense Forces patrol spotted two individuals who approached the fence from the Lebanese side, hurling unidentified bundles into Israeli territory. Shortly thereafter, a man appeared on the Israeli side, allegedly for collecting the boxes that contained 22 kilograms of heroin and cocaine. The suspect was detained for questioning.