An Israeli intelligence assessment claims Hezbollah has completed its military and logistic preparations for a new war with the regime.

Hezbollah’s preparations, according to a report by the Ynetnews, reinforce the intelligence estimate that a confrontation in northern parts of occupied Palestine is ‘closer than a wide-scale’ conflict in the Gaza Strip.

This may be one of the reasons why the Israeli military is not rushing into a comprehensive operation in Gaza, the report added.

The annual intelligence review, presented to cabinet ministers by officials from the domestic spy agency Shin Bet, Military Intelligence and the Mossad, said that the likelihood for a wide-scale Hamas attack in 2008 was slim.

But the likelihood that “Hezbollah will attack Israel” is higher than the likelihood for an escalation on other fronts, the report alleges.

Israel fought a war with Hezbollah in 2006 to destroy the military power of the resistance group.

A recently published report on the 33-day war, however, admitted that the Israeli strategy was widely flawed. Many analysts consider the conflict as a humiliating defeat for Israel that put the government of premier Ehud Olmert under pressure to resign.